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PIMM OH EDDCATION 



EMBRACING THE THREE TREATISES 

THE EDUCATION OF BOYS 

HOW A YOUNG MAN SHOULD HEAR 
LECTURES ON POETRY 

THE RIGHT WAY TO HEAR 



Charles William Super, Ph. D., LL. D. 

Ex-President of the Ohio University and Professor of Greek, 

ibidem; Translator of Weil's Order of Words in the Ancient 

Languages Compared with the Modern; A History of 

the German Language; Between Heathenism and 

Christianity; Wisdom and Will in 

Education, etc., etc. 



SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 



^3 



Copyright, 1910, by C W. Bardeen 



€ CI. A 280801 



Doctori Adolpho Michaelis, 

viro omato omnibus liberalium artium disciplinis 

soli superstiti professorum quorum lectionibus 

olim adfuit 

studiosus Tubingensis, hunc libellum 

dedicat 

auctor. 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 
Page 9. 

THE EDUCATION OF BOYS 

Introduction. Where education should be- 
gin, page 47 — Euripides' Hippolytus. An 
illustrious father and a foolish son, page 48 
— Wine to be eschewed. The three factors 
of an education, page 49 — Inanimate nature 
and brutes, page 51 — The time to begin an 
education, page 52 — What a pedagogue should 
be, page 55 — Socrates. The first Socratic 
who taught for pay, page 57 — Results of 
parental neglect, page 58 — The supreme 
good, page 59 — Stilpo to Demetrius, page 
60 — Hippolytus. Garrulity to be avoided, 
page 61 — Pericles. Demosthenes, page 62 — 
Apelles. As to style, page 63 — Philosophy 
the crowning glory, page 65 — Three modes of 
life, page 66 — Physical training, page 67 — Ad- 
vice to the poor, page 68 — Praise and reproof, 
page 69 — Work and play, page 70 — Import- 
ance of memory, page 71 — Protesilaus. See 
the Life of Lysander, chapter 16, page 72 — 
Socrates and the Kicker, page 73 — Archytas. 

Plato, page 73 — The tongue. Ptolemy and 
5 



6 Plutarch on Education 

Sotades, page 74 — Theocritus, page 75 — Strip- 
lings often worse than boys, page 77 — Pythag- 
oras, page 78 — Cursed be flatterers, page 79 — 
Do not drive; lead, page 81 — Wedlock recom- 
mended, page 82 — Parents should set a good 
example, page 83 

HOW TO HEAR LECTURES ON POETRY 

Introduction, page 85 — Danger in reading po- 
etry, page 87 — Not all poetry is to be read , page 
88 — Aristotle. Fiction and painting. Not all 
verse is poetry, page 90 — Quotations from Homer, 
page 92 — Euripides' Iphigeneia in Aulis, page 
93 — Poetry and painting, page 94 — Euripides' 
Phoenissa and Ixion. Menander, page 96 — 
Homer, page 98 — A strange misapprehension, 
page 99 — Politicians at variance, page 101 — 
Pindar, page 102 — Sophocles, page 103 — Alexis, 
Socrates, Diogenes, page 104 — Homer, page 
105 — Sophocles, page 107 — Archilochus. Hom- 
er, page 108 — Interpretation. Plutarch's mis- 
take. Hesiod, page 100 — Meaning of Arete, 
page 112 — The nature of poetry, page 113 — 
Homer, page 115-6 — Public opinion, page 118 
— Cave poetas, page 120 — Homer, page 123 
— A time-server, page 124 — Cato. Aeschylus, 
page 125 — Greeks and Trojans, page 126 — 
Diverse tastes, page 127 — Results of ignorance. 
Lying is base, page 131 — Homer. Wisdom is 
the principal thing, page 132 — Read between 
the lines, page 133 — How to amend poetry, 
page 136 — Interpretation in the interest of 



Contents 7 

good morals, page 139 — Philosophy and poetry 
must harmonize, page 141 — But see Iliad Book 
II, beginning, page 142. 

THE RIGHT WAY TO HEAR 

Introduction, page 145 — Hearing is the most 
important sense, page 147 — Hear before }^ou 
speak, page 149 — Hearing should precede speak- 
ing, page 150 — Hear with patience, page 151 
— Envy, page 152 — Prejudice to be eschewed. 
Plato's question, page 154 — A bad witness 
may give good testimony, page 156 — Words 
are not necessarily thoughts, page 157 — We 
should imitate the bee, page 158 — Importance 
of self-examination. Matter, not manner, of 
chief importance, page 159 — Questions should 
be relevant, page 161 — Ne sutor ultra crepidam, 
page 162 — Is the lesson for us? page 163 — Nil 
admirari, page 165 — A listener need not be an 
impartial judge, page 166 — Plato. Seek the 
best, not the worst, page 167 — Let praise be 
moderate, page 169 — Euripides' reproof, page 
170 — Over and under sensitiveness, page 171 
— We should stand our ground, page 172 — 
Difficulties not insuperable. Gleanthes and 
Xenocrates, page 174 — To be an honest hearer 
is Alpha and Omega, page 177. 

APPENDIX 

Note to page 52, 179 — Note to page 72 and 
99, 184— Note to page 152, 190— Note to page 
170, 191. 



INTRODUCTION 

As I have elsewhere dealt at some length with 
Plutarch and his times it is not necessary that I 
should again go into the details of the subject 
here.* As, however, this Introduction is not 
written for philologists but for persons who are 
interested in the history of education, and as 
some knowledge of the conditions under which 
they were composed is essential to a proper 
understanding of the tracts which follow, it 
is proposed here to give the reader some in- 
sight into the personality of Plutarch and to 
set forth briefly his mental attitude towards 
the past and toward the era in which he lived. 
It can not be too often repeated and too strongly 
insisted upon that we cannot comprehend the 
social or intellectual conditions existing at any 
period of a people's history without examining 
the circumstances and the national spirit out 
of which they grew. 

Notwithstanding the fact that everybody who 
reads anything except the current issues of the 
press knows something of the Sage of Chasronea, 
it is probable that with the great majority this 
knowledge is confined to a few of his Biographies. 
And while the interest in these delightful narra- 
tives is due much more to the manner in which 
they are related than to the men whose lives 
they are designed to r protray, since some of them 



*See list of books at the end of this Introduction. 



10 Plutarch on Education 

are largely or wholly mythical, it is nevertheless 
true that we get but a one-sided view of Plutarch 
if we do not acqaint ourselves with some por- 
tions of his Moral Writings, the general desig- 
nation given to that extensive collection of 
essays upon an almost unlimited variety of 
subjects. 

As a collector of biographical material Plutarch 
may be compared to the bee rather than the 
botanist. The former seeks no plants except 
those that yield honey and solely the parts that 
secrete the sweet fluid, while the latter is inter- 
ested in all flowers and plants without reference 
to any particular properties. Plutarch is con- 
cerned only with those men whose careers 
seemed to furnish material for the ethical lessons 
which he wishes to deduce and only to the extent 
which they permit the extraction of those 
precepts which he persistently keeps in the fore- 
ground. 

On the other hand the biographer, in the 
proper sense of the word, endeavors to place 
before his readers his hero or heroes in their 
entirety; to portray them as men of flesh and 
blood, extenuating nothing, setting down noth- 
ing in malice. Plutarch has deliberately chosen 
his method, for in his life of Nikias he says: 
"I am not a writer of histories but of biographies. 
My readers therefore must excuse me if I do 
not record all the events or describe in detail, 
but only touch upon the noblest and most 
famous. For the most conspicuous do not 



Greek Education 11 

always or of necessity show a man's virtues or 
failings, but it often happens that some light 
occasion, a word or a jest, gives a clearer insight 
into the character, than battles with their 
slaughters of tens of thousands and the greatest 
array of armies and the sieges of cities. Accord- 
ingly as painters produce a likeness by a repre- 
sentation of the countenance and the expression 
of a face, in which the character is revealed, 
without troubling themselves about the other 
parts of the body, so I must be allowed to look 
rather into the signs of a man's character and 
by means of these to portray the life of each, 
leaving to others the description of great events 
and battles." 

Plutarch lived at a time when the individual 
had already emerged to a considerable extent 
from the social unit. He had to a great degree 
become a separate and distinct entity. It is 
true the Homeric age had its heroes, men who 
loomed high above the common herd; but they 
all claimed descent from a god. In the Greek 
states during those times where the sources of 
our information are the fullest the individual 
counted for little. We shall see further along in 
what a strange contradiction this ethnic dogma 
involved them. The men who made themselves 
conspicuous by the force of their talents soon 
incurred the jealousy of their fellow citizens 
and were hurled from power. The panorama 
that Herodotus unrolls before our eyes shows 
us on the one hand a portion of the Greek people 



12 Plutarch on Education 

engaged in a life and death struggle with the 
hosts of Asia under the lead of a despotic ruler. 
One man or even one thousand men were as 
nothing when weighed against the Great King. 
But the free will of the Greeks was almost 
equally circumscribed, though by a different 
and impersonal agency. The Spartans who fell 
at Thermopylae were an offering to the spirit of 
law, not to their own free will. That one citizen 
is as good and competent as another is a political 
doctrine which the Athenians put in practice by 
filling many of their public offices by lot. The 
same custom prevailed in Rome, though the 
limits of chance were much more circumscribed. 

The extension of the Alexandrian empire and 
later the Roman conquest did much to break 
down the barriers between the little Greek 
commonwealths, no less than between these 
and the "barbarians", and to demonstrate to 
the Hellenes that there were men in the world 
much more efficient as rulers than their own 
kith and kin. The facilities for intercommuni- 
cation had in the meantime greatly improved; 
travel had become much more common, and the 
different parts of the Eastern world had learned 
to know each other better. 

Greek thought was slowly getting rid of its 
local and national prejudices, while Jewish 
thought was moving in the same direction. 
In the nature of the case Christianity found the 
mind of the world in some measure prepared 



Greek Education 13 

for the doctrine of the universal brotherhood 
of man. 

Plutarch, though perhaps unconsciously, was 
to a large extent a child of his age. He was 
still somewhat narrow in his views and unable 
to see much of value in anything that was not 
Greek in language and spirit ; but he had learned 
to place a high estimate upon the individual. 
With him a man's social condition and antece- 
dents counted for less than with most of his 
countrymen. He could not but be aware that 
Rome had produced great men and he does not 
hesitate to place some of them alongside of his 
own countrymen. By reason of this breadth 
of view there was naturally evolved in his mind 
a great interest in young men, and he took 
pleasure in aiding them in every way in his 
power. There are many passages in his writings 
in which he unostentatiously refers to instances 
of this kind. Yet Plutarch was no innovator 
either in matters educational or in anything else. 
He nowhere proposes a marked departure from 
time-honored customs and usages. His main 
object is always to teach his readers how to make 
the best use of the materials that liad for 
centuries been in vogue among his countrymen. 
It is singular that in the treatises which follow he 
seems to attach so little importance to history 
as a teacher of morals and as a guide for conduct 
in the future, seeing that many of his country- 
men had laid so much stress upon it. But this 
subject was not in the traditional curriculum 



14 Plutarch on Education 

and he could see no need of putting it there. 
A writer of biographies whose chief aim is to 
tell his readers that 

"Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime" 

might very properly be expected to linger on 
the theme wherever the opportunity offered; 
yet it occupies no place in his system. 

It may be said on the other hand, that as he 
had written pedagogical biographies or purposed 
to write such, he ought to be excused from touch- 
ing upon the subject again in these short papers. 

Plutarch's conservatism is further shown by 
his attitude toward the gods. Like Plato he 
condemns the poets for fabricating lying tales 
about them, but it does not seem to have occur- 
red to him that polytheism rests on an entirely 
erroneous conception of the universe, and that 
a religion which attributes all kinds of immoral- 
ities to divine beings can not consistently be 
made the basis of moral instruction. Neither 
does he seem to be aware that the study of 
philosophy which he so often and strongly urges 
can not but undermine his religion. On the 
other hand, as paganism had nurtured many 
noble men, or as they had at least grown up 
under it, he may have thought that their religion 
deserved some of the credit and not all of the 
discredit that attaches to bad men. If he had 
lived in our time he would probably have remind- 
ed his hearers that the greater part of Europe 



Greek Education 15 

has been nominally christian for more than a 
thousand years and that within this time have 
lived some of the worst men known to history. 
Yet they professed to be zealous christians. 
The noblest and the vilest have not unfrequently 
acknowledged allegiance to the same religion. 
It either had no influence on their lives or was 
conceived in a different spirit. Few men are 
made worse by their religion ; doubtless many are 
not made better. 

The careful student of Greek literature and 
history can hardly resist the conviction that 
the Greek people were incapable of taking the 
world seriously. Renan has somewhere said: 
"They that laugh shall not rule." The dictum 
certainly proved true in their case. They 
lacked moral earnestness. This statement needs 
some qualification, for Socrates was an earnest 
man. Yet even he, if he has been correctly 
reported, constantly indulged in irony and mock 
gravity, so that we are often in doubt as to his 
real meaning. He was too lenient a critic of 
existing conditions and withal too optimistic 
to be a reformer of popular morality. 

Aristophanes is often bitterly in earnest; but 
he could not resist the temptation to make jokes, 
to turn the most sacred things to ridicule. For 
him the most alarming situation had its farcical 
side, and this side he is fond of turning to view. 
He evidently knew his public. No man who 
really desires to make his hearers better would 



16 Plutarch on Education 

speak of the most revered beings and most 
sacred mysteries as he does. 

The tragic poets move on a higher plane. 
But Sophocles was too good-natured, too well 
satisfied with his hearers, which is not to be 
wondered at since they were so well satisfied 
with him, to dwell long and earnestly on their 
failings. Euripides is sometimes bitter, occas- 
ionally very bitter; but he is too much of a 
fatalist to make his diatribes effective. Aris- 
totle is a keen analyst of what is; he judges men 
and institutions with, a masterly grasp, but he 
has little to say about what ought to be. He 
holds that growth and decay are as natural for 
states as for individuals. Demosthenes is usiial- 
ly very much in earnest; but his aims were for 
the most part wholly unpractical and his narrow 
particularism was sadly out of date. Besides, 
he was a man whose moral character was marred 
by many weaknesses. Plutarch occasionally 
denounces groups and individuals for rude 
manners, unseemly behavior and immorality, 
but he does not seem to see that the whole 
trend of events in his time is in the wrong 
direction, nor that his fellow Greeks are entirely 
given to wasting their time on trifles. Lukian 
is a bitter and biting satirist. He unmercifully 
castigates the weaknesses and frivolities of his 
country men, but he does little to place before 
them higher aims or the true purposes of life. 
A reformer must not merely endeavor to des- 



Greek Education 17 

troy the old; he must also have something 
better to put in its place. 

Contrast with the whole trend of Greek thought 
the terrible moral earnestness of the Hebrew 
prophets, of St. Paul, Plutarch's contemporary, 
and of the early Christians, and it becomes 
plain why Greek influence declined and Chris- 
tianity gradually gained ground. The centuries 
that met about the time Christ was born were 
no time for taking the world easily. It was a 
time for serious thought and determined action 
in the domain of morals. 

Plutarch was not the man for the times, 
except in a limited sense. He abhorred all 
extremes. He saw no use in getting alarmed. 
He seems to have belived that it does not matter 
so much what one does if he does not go to 
extremes. It is important above all things to 
keep in the via media aurea. For him the old 
religion was good enough; but it is essential 
that one gets the best out of it, not the worst. 

This is always the argument used by the 
conservatives in education, in government, in 
ecclesiastical affairs, and in what not! They 
see no use in departing from the old standards. 
They are right, if the majority could be induced 
to see things in this light. There are few relig- 
ions that are not better than its professed fol- 
lowers. Yet it is historically true that estab- 
lished churches are lifeless everywhere, if there 
is no rivalry between them and the dissenters. 



IS Plutarch on Education 

Plutarch therefore had no patience with those 
who found fault with the old religion. He saw 
no need of dissent and discouraged all signs of 
it. Like most of the Greek thinkers he was 
favorably disposed towards a monarchical form 
of government. Here he was probably much 
influenced by contemporary conditions. The 
Romans had at least brought peace to his long 
distracted country, though it was to a consider- 
able extent the peace of death. As a close 
student of history he could not help but know 
that the statesmanship of his countrymen 
throughout their entire career, with a few bril- 
liant exceptions, was a melancholy failure. 

In the matter of conduct he seems to have been 
rather lenient towards what is usually called 
personal immorality. Not that we have any 
reason to think that he was himself lax in this 
respect, but he regarded somewhat lightly the 
peccadilloes of others. We can hardly think 
otherwise than that with Hesiod he held that 
even the best of men may be guilty of occasional 
lapses. We are safe in saying that the story 
of Joseph's temptation would not have appealed 
strongly to him, and that the frequent injunc- 
tions of the New Testament that we ought to 
abstain from even the appearance of evil, or 
that we must refrain from doing some things 
which, though perfectly proper in themselves 
may make others to offend, would have seemed 
absurd to him. 



Greek Education 19 

The recklessness with which the Greeks took 
human life, often, in fact usually, for the purpose 
of gaining advantages over their political oppon- 
ents is another proof of their naturally frivolous 
temperament. French revolutions on a small 
scale were all the time breaking out, though the 
motives were usually far less honorable. Like 
children who sometimes get angry at their dolls 
and break them in pieces only to be sorry a 
moment later for what they have done, the 
Greeks slew their political adversaries not 
unfrequently to regret it afterwards, 

The rancor and ruthlessness exhibited by 
the various political cliques and parties toward 
each other were generally more bitter than the 
hostility displayed toward a foreign foe. No 
public man was safe in life or character. And 
if we believe the records transmitted to us the 
really upright were few. But it made little 
difference with the populace. He who was so 
unfortunate as to incur their momentary dis- 
pleasure usually had to pay the penalty in some 
way, often with his life. When we note the 
extraordinary and even excessive care with 
which all modern civilized states, and even 
Rome during a large part of her existence, 
safeguard a man's life against judicial error or 
legal injustice we realize the contrasts between 
our times and the "golden age of Greece." 

Few features of Greek history are more sur- 
prising than the martial spirit, the irrepressible 
energy, the inherent vigor of the early Greek 



20 Plutarch on Education 

tribes and the utter breakdown of these qual- 
ities as we approach the Christian era. The 
decay began to manifest itself very markedly 
in the wars against Philip of Macedon, the visible 
results of which were the uninterupted advance 
of that monarch and his successors. The last 
act of the drama was performed by the Romans. 

If the Greeks had evinced to any considerable 
degree their old-time valor the result would have 
been different. When they had so far degener- 
ated that their country became a part of the 
world-empire they were hardly considered fit 
for service in the armies of their conquerors. 
Left largely to themselves they passed a sort of 
vegetative existence, feeding on the glories of 
their own past. They did not cease, as they 
have not ceased to this day, to boast of the 
achievements of the heroes of Marathon and 
Salamis and Platasa. Few of them however 
manifested any inclination to imitate or emu- 
late them. Plutarch still recommends martial 
exercises, but it is hard to see for what purpose, 
since comparatively few Greeks seem to have 
enrolled in the Roman armies. Not many of 
them were even efficient citizens within the 
narrow sphere still open to them; otherwise 
Greece would not have exhibited the economic 
decay that was so marked in the time of Plu- 
tarch. 

In this respect he was an honorable exception. 
He filled various municipal offices and discharged 
their functions faithfully, humble as they were. 



Greek Education 21 

Though a larger field of labor was open to him he 
remained faithful to his native Chaeronea. 

The predilection of the Greeks for talking, 
for discussion, was not yet extinguished. In 
this respect Plutarch was a "chip off the old 
block." The catalogue of his works compiled 
by Lamprias, a reputed son of his, comprises 
the names of two hundred and ten treatises 
attributed to him. Many of these are no longer 
in existence. The subjects are often trivial. 
Still as long as their author did not neglect 
more important duties there is no reason why 
he should not entertain his friends with compil- 
ations from the books in his extensive library. 
Modern scholars set great store by many of 
these excerpts. 

Though Christianity may properly be said to 
have been first proclaimed in Greek lands and 
in the Greek tongue, it expanded but little until 
it gained a footing on Roman soil, in the narrow- 
er sense. After it became the court religion of 
the Eastern empire it soon degenerated into the 
empty form and the vain ceremony it is to-day 
all over the Russian lands. Its votaries spent 
their efforts in talking and disputing and writing 
or in solitary contemplation either as monks or 
cenobites. During all this time Christianity 
kept on its triumphant march westward. But 
in the East it can hardly be said to have passed 
beyond the sphere of the Greek tongue, while 
even here it lost ground to the Saracens, whose 
onward course was not stayed until their power 



22 Plutarch on Education 

was shattered in the conflict with the hosts of 
the sire of Pepin on the plains of Tours. 

Before the middle of the second century- 
Christianity had gained a foothold in Gaul, and 
in less than a century from this date many 
episcopal sees had been founded in that country. 
At the close of the fifth century Clovis and his 
followers had embraced the orthodox faith; 
thus Christianity became the state religion of 
the Frankish kingdom. In 732 Charles turned 
back the advancing tide of Mohammedanism, 
and by 760 the last of the votaries of the Cres- 
cent had left French soil for ever. As early as 
the sixth century Christianity had made its 
way across Britain, leaving many traces, and 
Ireland had already become so christianized 
that it was able to send out missionaries in all 
directions. It was not till the ninth century 
that Greek monks set out to preach to the Slavs. 
From the time the new doctrines spread slowly 
northward from Constantinople, but it was only 
after almost all of the rest of Europe had become 
nominally christian. 

Yet even here the efforts of the eastern monks 
failed to a large extent, since many of the Slavs 
are Roman and not Greek Catholics. Roman 
Catholicism almost from its first organization 
never ceased to be an expansive force. It 
rapidly spread over nearly the whole of Europe 
with little support from the government, and 
eventually over most of the known world. 



Greek Education 23 

Greek Catholicism moved forward as fast as 
Russian conquests and generally no faster or 
no farther. It offered nothing that appeals 
either to the human heart or to the human 
intellect. It cannot adapt itself to the progress 
of enlightenment. It does not draw men, it 
has to carry them almost as a dead weight. 
There is probably no equal number of men with- 
in the pale of Christendom that is of so little use 
to any one as the monks who dwell on Mount 
Athos; they do very little even for themselves. 
It makes one sad to think that the treasures of 
Greek antiquity in the East were buried treasures 
until unearthed by the West. Even the monks 
on Athos did not know what their libraries 
contained until they were exhumed from the 
dust and mold by scholars from distant lands. 

These historical facts are cited here to show 
that the greatness of Greece and the uniqueness 
of the Greek genius seem to have been so closely 
interwoven with the religion of the people, with 
faith in the gods of the olden time, that when 
the latter began to decay the former entered 
upon a period of decline. Perhaps such men as 
Plutarch, Dio Chrysostum, Julian the Apostate, 
instinctively divined that everything which 
made the Greeks a peculiar people was due more 
to their religion than any other cause. The 
feeble efforts that were made more than once 
during the first Christian centuries to set in 
motion a pagan revival were an anachronism. 
The time for a pagan Reformation was past; 



24 Plutarch on Education 

that for a Christian Reformation had not yet 
come. 

Plutarch placed his hope in the rising gener- 
ation, in boys. He rarely deplores present 
conditions because he believed that by proper 
training of the young the future could be made 
better. He thinks the old religion good enough 
and is opposed to the introduction of any other. 
The important thing is to view it from its best 
side and to use the best that is in it. Plutarch 
has faith in the innate goodness of the human 
heart; nevertheless the right kind of education 
is far more cogent than the best natural endow- 
ments. The chief thing is to view it from its 
best side and to select the best that is in it. The 
main purpose of right education is to enable 
the worst boy's better nature to get the mastery 
of the vicious impulses that may be in him. 
For this reason all education should have chiefly 
a moral end in view. 

It may be said in this connection that the cur- 
rent practice of dealing with education as if it 
were synonymous with the communication and 
acquisition of knowledge is an essentially modern 
phase of thought. It has grown and gathered 
strength with the growth and development of 
the physical sciences; it is part and parcel of 
the doctrine that the best education is one that 
will yield the largest, or at least large pecuniary 
returns. The seekers for a liberal education 
as the Greeks counted a liberal education have 
become very few. 



Greek Education 25 

The fundamental thought that underlies all 
Greek education as the best of the Greeks con- 
ceived it is its ennobling influence.. A man 
should be a Kalokagathos, not so much because 
the state needs such men, though this is im- 
portant, but because the attributes it embodies 
and the epithet it connotes include the highest 
type, the ideal type of manhood. It is some- 
thing that can not be bought with a price and 
ought not to be sought nor communicated for 
pecuniary considerations. This conviction 

prompts the more or less avowed hostility to 
the Sophists which pervades Greek literature 
and is found in the writings even of those who 
were themselves, though unconsciously, Sophists. 
Education should be liberal and sought for its 
own sake, for its influence on the seeker, and not 
because of any pecuniary gain that he expects 
to make out of it. The profit is to be intangible 
but none the less real or less evident. 

It may be thought strange that Plutarch 
manifests so slight an interest in anything that 
is not Greek except men. Though he spent 
some time in Rome there is no evidence that he 
gave any attention to her great writers unless 
they were also statesmen and commanders. 
It is doubtful whether he read Horace or Virgil 
or Lucretius and other authors of almost equal 
note. His knowledge of Latin was scant and 
he took little interest in the language. 

Plutarch is inclined to disparage education 
that is acquired late in life. One who has not 



26 Plutarch on Edit cation 

been brought up as a gentleman — and we must 
not forget that with Plutarch education is for 
the largest part a bringing-up — will have great 
difficulty in mastering the finished grace of man- 
ner and polish of speech that characterize the 
man of genuine culture. He probably takes 
this position, to some extent at least, in order to 
impress the more forcibly upon parents the im- 
portance of looking carefully after the education 
of their sons before it may be too late. Albeit, 
this creed is as old as civilized man and as re- 
cent as our contemporaries. It is doubtless 
true that some things can be learned only early 
in life; whether they are generally of great value 
is another question. 

Plutarch's dislike of coercion is the correlate 
of his faith in reason. If man is inherently a 
reasonable being he should be induced to follow 
reason as early in life as possible and taught to 
seek no other guide. 

Let us cast a glance at the social conditions in 
which Plutarch lived and contrast them with 
our own time in one important aspect. What 
inducement was there for a young man to ed- 
ucate himself ? What career opened to him that 
required more than a knowledge of the ele- 
ments? He could look forward to no official 
position higher than some local magistracy 
where fitness usually counted for less than avail- 
ability or even servility. He might become a 
peripatetic teacher of rhetoric, and journey from 
city to city for the purpose of displaying his or- 



Greek Education 27 

atorical pyrotechnics or of making fine speeches 
without saying anything worth while. He who 
sought knowledge in all seriousness, the phil- 
osopher, had few motives to entice him but the 
genuine love of wisdom. 

Note the contrast with our own time. The 
educated man has an assured career before him. 
The state and the community encourage and 
sustain him, at least to a certain extent. It is 
probable that the seekers after knowledge for 
its own sake are relatively no more numerous 
now than they were in the days when Plutarch 
delivered his lectures and wrote his books. But 
knowledge "pays in cash;" it paid little or not 
at all then. 

Looking at the conditions from the modern 
point of view, the young man who seeks an ed- 
ucation wishes to be reasonably certain that the 
time spent in its acquisition has not been lost. 
He does not want to realize, after it is too late, 
that he had better spent it in learning a 
trade or in training his muscles to manual 
labor. When we recall how many great think- 
ers Greece produced in her prime and reflect that 
their inquiries and researches were inspired 
purely by the desire to know; that knowledge 
was its own reward solely and entirely ; and that 
nowhere in the world was such an intellectual 
ferment anticipated or repeated, we begin to 
realize that the ancient Greeks were indeed a 
unique people. 



28 Plutarch on Education 

There were two motives that were constantly 
struggling for the mastery in the breast of every 
Greek citizen — the feeling of personal inde- 
pendence and the necessity of obeying the laws 
of the state. In a quick-witted, inquisitive, and 
highly endowed people the former of these two 
motives led to investigation, to reflection, to 
the quest for facts, to the search for truth. But 
it also made them averse to authority even 
when their very political existence depended 
upon obedience. 

The Athenian was rarely willing to do what 
anybody else did, or if he was willing to do it 
he objected to doing it to order. He believed 
in education, but he was strongly opposed to 
compulsion by the state or any other authority 
in this as in other matters. Public opinion was 
a foe to ignorance; the man who lacked culture 
made himself an object of ridicule and con- 
tempt; but it held him personally responsible, 
not the community of which he formed a part. 

We see exemplified in a most remarkable de- 
gree the irreconcilable antagonism between a 
central authority and personal freedom in the 
two leading states of Greece, Athens and Sparta. 
All the others were modeled more or less closely 
on the same plan. The points of similarity 
and of difference are to some extent brought 
out by Pericles in his funeral oration, as re- 
ported by Thucydides. If he had lived a few 
years longer, or if he could have seen how his 
fellow-citizens managed affairs after he was no 



Greek Education 29 

longer with them, he would have become pain- 
fully aware of the falsity of his prediction and of 
the innate perversity of those from whom one 
might have expected better things. 

Per contra, when we remember that modern 
governments are still engaged in the solution 
of this problem; that it has never yet been pos- 
sible to fix the limits between the authority of 
the state and the individual; that these limits 
are shifted from year to year by the same legis- 
lature; and that the functions of the citizen are 
much more circumscribed in some countries 
than in others that are equally enlightened, we 
need not be surprised that the task was too hard 
for the ancients. And so far as compulsory ed- 
ucation is concerned, it is in most countries an 
affair of the present generation. 

It is probable that very few people of the 
present day have a well-defined faith in the So- 
cratic doctrine that virtue and knowledge are in- 
terchangeable terms. Yet it is a doctrine that 
everybody holds. On what grounds can we 
account for the extraordinary confidence in the 
saving efficacy of knowledge? In every civil- 
ized country, more or less is done through gov- 
ernment agency to promote universal intel- 
ligence. Those parents who will not give their 
children at least the elements of an education 
voluntarily are constrained by law to do so. Is 
the outlook promising? 

One thing is certain: that is that you can 
not educate anybody by compulsion. Here 



30 Plutarch on Education 

Plutarch was right. It can no more be done 
now than it could be done in the days of Plu- 
tarch or Socrates. Herein the Greek attitude 
was correct while the modern is, generally 
speaking, wrong. We can compel the acquire- 
ment of a certain amount of knowledge, or of 
a certain measure of skill, but there is no power 
on earth that will make an educated man except 
his own volition. 

In spite of the utter break-down of reason 
as a regenerative agency in a decaying society, 
Plutarch still has faith in reason. But to what 
else could he appeal ? Not to patriotism, not to 
national pride or the pride of race, not to re- 
ligion, though he would have us believe that 
polytheism contained more of good than is com- 
monly believed; he could therefore appeal only 
to philosophy, to reason, to man's consciousness 
of his inborn dignity. While Plutarch wculd 
entice the young to seek wisdom and knowledge 
we are undertaking to drive those that we can 
not lure; or we hold out pecuniary inducements. 
In our public schools we have virtually pro- 
hibited an appeal to the religious sanction, to 
other-worldliness. But we insist on training 
the reasoning powers of the young, on making 
every young person a philosopher in embryo, 
in the hope that he will continue to exercise his 
reasoning faculties when he is no longer held in 
leading strings. It would be unjust to say that 
the modern world has failed in this gigantic 



Greek Education 81 

undertaking; but it is quite within bounds to say 
that it has fallen far short of its ideals. 

The store of wisdom deposited in their writ- 
ings by the Greek thinkers is not yet exhausted, 
in spite of the fact that the mine has been 
worked for more than four modern centuries. 
None have penetrated more deeply into the 
secrets of the human heart than they; none have 
so profoundly influenced the course of modern 
civilization. They laid the foundations of 
modern progress, though they did not, of course, 
furnish every stone that enters into the struc- 
ture. 

We are all Greeks, said the poet Keats; and 
in a sense he was right. Take up almost any 
author you please and you will find in him some- 
thing to stimulate thought. The late writers do 
not deserve the neglect with which they are 
treated. No one Greek writer shows more 
clearly the universality of Greek inquiry than 
Plutarch, since he is a sort of cyclopedia of what 
the Greeks and Romans had said and done up 
to his time. But in what constitutes the prac- 
tical affairs of life, how little have they accom- 
plished! Failure is "writ large" over all their 
aspirations. Like the corn of wheat buried in 
the earth that can not spring up unless it die, 
their wisdom left no impress and no trace except 
as it is buried in books and under the soil. 

They always knew just what to do but rarely 
did it. Of no people can it be more truly said 
what certain individuals might say of them- 



32 Plutarch on Education 

selves, "Do what I tell you, not what I do." 
They usually saw the goal to which virtue leads, 
but almost inevitably wandered to the right or 
left in paths of vice before reaching it. 

Pericles, the most brilliant and successful 
Athenian statesman, guided for a time his coun- 
trymen in the path of prosperity and solemnly 
urged them not to depart from the course 
marked out by him; but his successors w/^re 
wiser in their own conceit and followed neither 
his example nor his counsels. Rarely have a 
people paid so heavy a penalty for the failure 
to heed the wise admonitions of a statesman. 
Socrates died the death of a malefactor on such 
frivolous charges that we ask in amazement : 
"Can these things be?" Themistocles and Al- 
cibades, two of the most brilliant men Athens 
produced, were alternately patriots and traitors. 
Demosthenes, though he can not be acquitted 
of acts unworthy of him, at least strove nobly 
and unselfishly by word and deed for his coun- 
try; but he died a voluntary death in order to 
avoid falling into the hands of his mortal en- 
emies. Theramenes, though not wholly disin- 
terested, deserved a better fate then that which 
overtook him. Phokion at the end of a long 
and useful life faithfully given to what he con- 
sidered the best interests of his country was not 
permitted to depart in peace, and ended his 
life the victim of the proverbial ingratitude of 
republics. 



Greek Education 33 

Euripides who has left upon record so many 
wise sayings was neglected and ridiculed by his 
countrymen to the end of his days. Aristotle 
like Anaxagoras was exiled from Athens on the 
same charge that led to the condemnation of 
Socrates by the same populace that applauded 
the coarse wit and sacrilege exhibited in the 
plays of Aristophanes. The corrupt as well as 
the incorruptible almost invariably shared the 
same melancholy fate; for the list above given 
is by no means exhaustive. 

We are always in danger of falling into error 
when we seek modern analogies in ancient con- 
ditions. We are however not far from the truth 
if we say that the prime source of the low moral 
standard of the Greeks must be found in the 
total absence of family life. They never ad- 
vanced beyond the standpoint indicated by 
Pericles when he said that the great glory of 
woman is to be least talked about among men, 
whether for good or for evil. There was no fam- 
ily life anywhere in ancient Hellas. In the very 
nature of the case children had to pass their 
first years in the home; but the mothers were so 
illiterate, the atmosphere in which they had 
themselves been brought up was so unfavor- 
able, that their influence upon their offspring 
had in it little or no wholesome stimulus. The 
great majority probably could not read; hence 
they had little to talk about but idle gossip or 
their domestic cares. Under such circumstances, 
the children, even if they had spent more 



34 Plutarch on Education 

time in the society of their mothers, would have 
been none the better or the wiser for it. In 
Lacedaemon the situation was no better, since 
the young Spartan hardly knew his own mother. 

For boys and men the home, if we may so call 
it, was little more than a place to sleep and to 
take their meals; the remainder of the twenty- 
four hours was spent in the open air, or with 
companions at school, or in places of amuse- 
ment, or in occupations intended to fit them for 
citizenship in the future. Plato gives us a hint 
of what children learned at home when he tells 
us in the Republic that mothers must not be 
under the influence of poets, scaring their chil- 
dren with bad versions of the myths in which 
certain gods are represented as going about in 
the night disguised as so many strangers and in 
divers forms; in this way making cowards of 
their children and speaking blasphemy against 
the gods. His plea for an equal education for 
men and women is evidence that he recognized 
a source of weakness in the pedagogy of his day. 

Plutarch, either because he lived at a later 
time when men had become wiser in this regard, 
or because the example of some noble Roman 
matrons had enlightened him, or because his 
own insight had made him wiser, had a higher 
idea of the influence of woman. He accorded 
to her a more conspicuous place in the economy 
of the household and attached a higher impor- 
tance to her influence on her offspring than his 
countrymen; but he was an exception. Popular 



Greek Education 35 

opinion was still against him, against the slight 
innovation he made in this respect in his own 
family, and has continued so to this day. In 
the position assigned to woman outside of the 
large cities Greece is still essentially an oriental 
country. 

Many of the Greek thinkers were well aware 
of the indaequacy of the methods of procedure 
in matters educational. They realized the ab- 
surdity of which the governments of their day 
were guilty in requiring the performance of 
duties on the part of the citizens which it made 
no sustained effort to qualify them to perform. 
But the popular notion of personal liberty which 
every Ionian cherished with fanatical zeal was 
a fatal delusion which no experience could dis- 
pel. Nothing produced such a flurry of ex- 
citement among the minor Greek states as the 
promise of freedom. Though unable to defend 
themselves they were always unwilling to pay 
tribute to a government that could do it for 
them. Thus they were ever ready to change 
the constitution at the beck of a power that 
promised them liberty. We are often amazed 
at the gullibility of the populace in this regard. 
What liberty meant when granted by Sparta 
ought to have been as clear to everybody as the 
sun at noonday; yet the Spartans were often 
welcomed as liberators. Government by the 
Ins was always oppression ; by the Outs, mildness 
and consideration. 



36 Plutarch on Education 

Plutarch makes himself a sharer in this ethnic 
folly by representing the avenging spirits of 
Nero as having granted to this monster of in- 
iquity some alleviation of his torments in the 
nether world because he had freed Greece. 

The natural alertness of the Greek mind to- 
gether with the frequency of intercourse between 
the different commonwealths, large and small, 
both in war and peace made the majority of the 
men well-informed; but mere information is not 
education, a truth that was as well understood 
twenty-five hundred years ago as it is to-day. 
But the rural population was in a great measure 
debarred from the intellectual benefits that arise 
from the attrition of mind against mind. 

Besides, the peculiar and utterly imprac- 
ticable theories which the most profound think- 
ers held as to the motives which should in- 
fluence men to seek intellectual culture were an 
insurmountable obstacle to the adoption of 
state educational systems. The number of 
persons who seek knowledge for its own sake 
for the mere pleasure of knowing has never been 
large and never will be. Among the ancient 
Greeks it was perhaps relatively more numerous 
than at any time since; nevertheless it com- 
prised but a small proportion of the citizens even 
in enlightened Athens. This becomes evident 
when we remember that the pecuniary rewards 
of what we may call authorship must have been 
very small and that there was little chance of 



Greek Education 37 

turning any important discovery or invention 
to profitable account. 

That even teachers of the higher branches 
should not expect pay was a doctrine held by so 
many persons that Greek literature is permeated 
with a more or less outspoken contempt for the 
Sophists because they accepted compensation for 
their lessons. Elementary teachers as a class 
were held in slight estimation both by the 
Greeks and Romans. It was maintained that 
he who teaches for pay must teach that for 
which there is a demand, that which will yield 
the learner an adequate return in kind, and that 
such instruction is more likely to be wide of the 
truth than not. 

The attitude of the Sophists toward knowl- 
edge, the avarice of many of them, their pre- 
dilection for rhetoric, their slight regard for 
logic and truth gave a strong color of verity to 
the charges brought against the whole system 
of "paying by results." The history of modern 
literature abundantly confirms the fears of the 
ancients, since what is written to sell has never 
had and will never have any real or permanent 
value. It is but rarely that what is artistically 
excellent and at the same time true to nature 
achieves an immediate and abiding success: 
"Poetry," says Leigh Hunt, "is the flower of 
any sort of experience rooted in truth and grow- 
ing up into beauty." It is however a rare prod- 
uct and can not be bought with money or pro- 
duced for money. 



38 Plutarch on Education 

The Greek thinkers knew this as well as the 
moderns know it; but they carried their doc- 
trines to extremes. We need to know many 
things that do not possess any aesthetic excel- 
lence because they are serviceable, yea indis- 
pensable. Few of us are able to possess genuine 
works of art; it is better then that we should 
provide ourselves with good reproductions than 
that our walls and houses should be entirely 
bare. Few of us can hear classical music often; 
it is better that we should listen to second and 
even third rate performers than to neglect 
wholly our aesthetic culture in this direction. 
There is however one privilege that is open to 
all, a source of enjoyment that is clossed to 
none except the psychically deformed or dwarfed: 
it is free access to the thoughts of the wisest and 
the best of all ages and all climes. 

Though Plutarch and those whom he regarded 
as his teachers held that training is more effi- 
cacious than endowments their belief was more 
circumscribed than the dogma now generally 
accepted, that the lower and even the lowest 
races can be civilized. They were hardly wil- 
ling to admit within the charmed circle any per- 
sons but pure Greeks. In fact, experience has 
almost demonstrated the correctness of the mod- 
ern belief. Plutarch would have been amazed 
if he could have seen in a vision the custodian- 
ship of the treasures of literature and art trans- 
ferred from his countrymen to the northern bar- 
barians. It would have been incredible to him 



Greek Education 39 

that his fellow Greeks could ever become so in- 
different to everything he valued most highly. 

I have already called attention to the fact 
that he is disposed to look askance at culture 
gained late in life as being somewhat spurious. 
A man must have early advantages in order to 
meet all the requirements. That this aristo- 
cratic feeling is thoroughly Greek may be seen 
from other passages in the ancient writers. A 
good illustration may be found in the oration 
On the Crown, where Demosthenes, instead of 
commending his opponent for having made so 
much of himself in spite of early disadvantages, 
twits him because he had been brought up in 
indigent circumstances, circumstances for which 
he was not in the least responsible. The speaker 
must have known that the sentiment would 
meet the approval of the audience else he would 
not have expressed it at a time when it was im- 
portant that he should gain their good- will. 

Few epochs of history are more mysterious, 
more interesting, and, I may say, more painful 
to the modern student than the decline of Greek 
civilization. No competent judge will, I be- 
lieve, deny that Sir Francis Galton is right in 
the high rank he accords to it. In the fourth 
pre-christian century the decline began though 
there were still some great men living toward 
the close of it. 

With the Alexandrian age knowledge had 
been greatly increased but the human intellect 
seems to have become perceptibly weaker. 



40 Plutarch on Education 

There were remarkable scholars but no thinkers 
of unusual ability. In mathematics the well 
known Euclid, in physics Archimedes, in sev- 
eral departments of learning Eratosthenes, to 
name only a few, were men of note, but they 
were no longer alive B. C. 200. Each gener- 
ation was less productive of able men than that 
which preceded it. During the first three cen- 
turies of the Christian era there are not more 
than half a dozen Greek writers who are of in- 
terest to us for what they themselves were. 

The scarcity of records for this long period 
makes our knowledge of it to consist chiefly of 
combination and inference, a sort of knowledge 
that is hard to distinguish from ignorance. 
Promising beginnings had been made in those 
sciences of which the moderns are so proud, but 
they were only beginnings. Each succeeding 
generation looked more and more to the past, 
less and less to the future. We need not be as 
severe on those times as is Professor Jowett 
in a note to his translation of Plato's Phaedrus, 
yet the reality without the slightest exagger- 
ation is sad enough. 

We can understand why Roman literature 
was to a large extent lost sight of during the Mid- 
dle Age. The Roman people had virtually 
ceased to exist, barbarous tribes one after an- 
other having fallen upon and disrupted the em- 
pire. In the very nature of the case these 
would not forthwith take an interest in the 
finer products of the Roman genius. 



Greek Education 41 

But the case of the Greeks was different. The 
Eastern empire existed for more than a thous- 
and years after the Roman conquest of Greece. 
Greek was the language of the court, of all who 
could read and of a great majority of its sub- 
jects. It is almost certain that toward the close 
of the first millenium after Christ, occurred those 
enormous losses in Greek literature that modern 
scholars feel so keenly. Granting that the Cru- 
saders destroyed many books still stored in the 
libraries of Contsantinople, it is striking tes- 
timony to the general indifference of the Greek 
people that virtually all their literary treasures 
could be gathered in a single city. 

Muller's Fragments of the Greek historians 
contains remnants of more than three hundred 
authors of whose works only a few shreds have 
come down to us. Enough of Greek poetry has 
been preserved to put us in position to estimate 
its general character as correctly as if we had 
much more. Few facts in the natural and 
physical sciences were recorded and afterward 
lost that can not be recovered. In philosophy, 
in its largest sense the human mind can go over 
the same problems to which the ancients gave 
so much attention, just as long as men exist 
upon the earth. But the unrecorded history 
of past times is gone for us forever. 

It is worthy of mention in this connection 
that for many episodes in the lives of notable 
Greeks and Romans we are indebted to Plutarch. 
But as we often have no other testimony we 



42 Plutarch on Education 

are compelled to accept his or admit our total 
ignorance. Albeit, we often find ourselves in a 
like predicament when dealing with the records 
of the past. 

If there is one lesson which the history of the 
Greek people teaches us with solemn impres- 
siveness it is that a nation can have no per- 
manent existence, so far as human affairs are 
permanent, that does not understand the art 
of government. They thought and wrote and 
experimented, but the practical results were for 
themselves meager in the extreme. They did 
not know how to profit by experience. Many 
of them knew just what sort of an education 
the individual ought to have, but their fellow 
citizens never learned how to put these theories 
into practice on a sufficiently large scale to bring 
about the results aimed at. They never fully 
realized the responsibility of the state as whole. 

If they had been in possession of this weighty 
secret we should not have to mourn the irre- 
parable losses in literature and art. A modern 
Greece would have been evolved out of an an- 
cient Greece. A glorious present would have 
been the extension of a glorious past. Instead 
of this we have a chasm of nearly two thousand 
years that can never be bridged. Well is it for 
our generation and better will it be for those 
that are to follow if unlike the dwellers on the 
shores of the Aegean decay does not begin when 
they have reached the zenith of their power and 
prestige. 



Greek Education 43 

As there are no exact English equivalents 
for several of the Greek terms used in general 
pedagogy it has been necessary to translate 
these with several different English words. It 
did not seem amiss therefore to insert here and 
there in the translation the original word in 
order that the reader, even if he knows no more 
of Greek than the alphabet, may in a measure 
be brought in direct contact with the underlying- 
thought. Some additional information on. these 
points will be found in the Appendix, Note A. 

It may be stated briefly in this place that 
three agencies cooperated to make the edu- 
cated man as the Greeks conceived him: a cer- 
tain amount of knowledge gained from books 
and from practical life; a certain grace of speech 
and conduct acquired by association with men 
of polished manners; a well-developed and robust 
body trained by means of gymnastic and mili- 
tary exercises. In our day it is not uncommon 
to hear it said of So-and-So that he is a man of 
fine education but that hard study has under- 
mined his health. According to the Greek 
standard such a man is at most only half edu- 
cated. 

No one will deny that the ancient ideal is the 
correct one; it is certain that the effort to bring 
the real as closely to it as possible produced 
splendid results. 

If an intelligent man who had made a careful 
study of modern thought throughout the civil- 
ized world were to be asked what he regarded as 



44 Plutarch on Education 

its most prominent characteristic he could hardly 
answer otherwise than, "Faith in the regen- 
erative power of knowledge." If he were to be 
asked what results were expected from the gen- 
eral diffusion of intelligence he could hardly 
answer otherwise than that they were a some- 
what vague hope in the continued betterment 
of the human race. Most men believe that in 
some way the highest good of the community 
and of the state as a whole will be promoted by 
the widest possible diffusion of knowledge; but 
if they were asked in what that good consists 
or is to consist they would probably be com- 
pelled to say that they did not very clearly 
apprehend. It is no easier now to apprehend the 
highest good than it was two thousand years ago. 

It is therefore not surprising that Plutarch 
had faith in the ultimate regeneration of man- 
kind through the spread of intelligence, the 
power to think justly and the will to use this 
power honestly and altruistically. On what else 
could he base his hope? 

It would be a good deal easier to set forth in 
a comparatively short essay what is worthy of 
special attention and characteristic of the peda- 
gogy of Plutarch; but that would not be Plu- 
tarch at first hand. It is true a translation is 
not exactly Plutarch in the strict sense of the 
word, yet it is nearer than an abridgment and 
as near as one can get who does not thoroughly 
understand Greek; and, I might add, the some- 
what peculiar Greek of the Sage of Chasronea. 



Greek Education 45 

If the knowledge of antiquity including the Bi- 
ble could be got in no other way than by the 
study of originals it would be scanty indeed. 

Readers of this volume who may be further 
interested in the subjects of which it treats will 
find additional information in the following 
books: 

German: R. Volkmann, Leben und Schriften 

des Plutarch von Chaeronea. Berlin. 
French : 0. Greard, De la morale de Plutarque. 

Paris. 
English : Thomas Davidson, Aristotle and the 
Ancient Educational Ideals, New York. — 
The same, The Education of the Greek 
People, N. Y. — C. W. Super, Between 
Heathenism and Christianity. Chicago. — 
The same, Wisdom and Will in Education. 
Harrisburg. — R. C. Trench, Plutarch, His 
Life, His Lives and His Morals. London. — 
J. P. Mahaffy, The Greek World under 
Roman Sway. London and New York. 
— W. W. Capes, University Life in Ancient 
Athens. London. The title of this little 
volume would be quite as accurate if it 
read: "University Life outside of ancient 
Athens", since it treats in a cursory way (no 
other is possible owing to the scarcity of 
records) of the higher education in the 
"Near East," chiefly during the first cen- 
turies of the Christian era. 



PLUTARCH ON EDUCATION 



THE EDUCATION OF BOYS 

(Note: It is proper to state here that the tract 
which follows is not of undoubted authenticity. In 
fact the preponderance of modern criticism is against 
placing it among the genuine writings of the Sage of 
Chaeronea. It abounds in a large number of figura- 
tive expressions, to mention only a single peculiarity, 
than the works of Plutarch about whose authorship 
there is no question. Many of these have .been some- 
what toned down in the translation. On the other 
hand it is always included among Plutarch's works 
and is withal so thoroughly Plutarchean in sentiment 
that if it did not emanate from the hand of the master 
it must have been composed by a disciple. It may 
therefore with perfect propriety and justice be included 
among the treatises intended to set forth Plutarch's 
views on education.) 



What may be said about the education (ajcoy^) j n t rod.«LCtion 

of free born boys and by the use of what agencies 
they may be trained to become men of upright 
character, it is here proposed to consider. 

II. 

It is perhaps best to begin with the parents. 
I should accordingly advise fathers who wish 
to beget noble children not to associate with Where 
women of doubtful reputation, since those per 



education 



sons who either on their father's or their moth- 
47 



48 



Plutarch on Education 



An illustrious 
father and 
a foolish son. 



er's side are of a questionable parentage are 
likely to be marked all their lives with an in- 
effaceable stain. In addition to this they are 
always liable to the reproaches of those who wish 
to put them to shame or to hurt their feelings. 
Wisely, therefore, does the poet say: 

"When the foundation of the race is laid 
In sin, needs must the issue be ill-starred." 

Verily, a capital foundation on which to build 
a fine character is honorable birth: to this care- 
ful regard should always be had by those who 
desire to beget children such as they would wish 
them to be. And in truth the principles of those 
who are of questionable or spurious parentage 
are naturally lacking in fixedness, and prone to 
servility, so that the poet very properly says: 

"For this cows man, how stout his heart soe'er, 
To know a father's or a mother's sin." 

Of course, the sons of illustrious parents are 
sometimes notorious for arrogance and unseemly 
conduct. Diophantus, for example, the son of 
Themistocles, is reported to have said frequently 
and in the presence of many persons, that what- 
ever his wish was, that was agreeable to the 
Athenians. For what he himself wanted his 
mother likewise wanted, and what his mother 
desired Themistocles wanted and what Them- 
istocles liked that all the Athenians were eg^er 
for. Very much to be commended on the score 
of lofty patriotism are the Lacedaemonians for 



eschewed. 



The Education of Boys 49 

laying a fine upon their king Archidamus be- 
cause he showed such poor judgment as to 
marry a little woman, alleging that he did not 
intend to beget kings for them but kinglets. 

III. 

Closely connected with these matters is one 
that has not escaped our predecessors. It is 
this : married men ought either to abstain en- Wine to be 
tirely from wine or use it only in moderation. 
For, those whose fathers are unduly fond of 
wine or are drunkards are wont to turn out 
drunkards also. This fact is what led Diogenes 
to remark, when he noticed an addle-pated and 
silly youth: "Young man, your father must have 
begotten you when he was drunk." This will 
suffice concerning the begetting of children. I 
shall now speak about their education, (aycoyrj) 

IV. 

We may remark in general terms regarding 
virtue what we are accustomed to say con- 
cerning the arts and sciences, namely, that three 
factors are essential to the formation of a well factorTof a 
rounded character: nature or natural dispo- education, 
sition (<f>vcrL<i) t instruction (or reason A.0'70?), 
and habit or use ( edos) . 

By instruction I understand the acquisition 
and imparting of knowledge; by habit, practice 
(do-KT/o-t?). Natural endowments are inborn; 
progress is a matter of education; application, of 
practice or exercise (fxeXerrj) ; while the highest 



The three 



50 Plutarch on Education 

excellence is the result of all combined. In 
so far as any of these is wanting, worth (or vir- 
tue) is necessarily defective. Natural endow- 
ments without education are blind; education, 
where there are no natural endowments, is in- 
efficacious; and practice apart from both is in- 
complete and must fail of its end. Just as the 
first requisite for farming is good land; the sec- 
ond, that the farmer be skillful, and the third 
that the seed be good ; so we in like manner may 
compare natural parts in a person to the earth; 
the instructor to the husbandman; the precepts 
of reason and exhortation, to the seed. 

In confirmation of these views I might say 
that the three combined and cooperated in the 
psychic powers of the men of glorious memory 
such as Pythagoras and Socrates and Plato and 
all who have won imperishable renown. For- 
tunate and favored of the gods is every one upon 
whom the gods have bestowed all these gifts. 
If any one thinks that lack of natural endow- 
ments can not be supplied by suitable instruc- 
tion and practice in virtue he is very much, yes, 
altogether mistaken. For disuse destroys the 
best natural endowments while instruction 
(8l8w)(v) improves even weak ones. Though easy 
tasks repel the indolent and careless, what is 
hard may be mastered by steady application. 
One may readily perceive how important dil- 
igence and care are for the performance and 
achievement of any undertaking, by observing 



The Education of Boys 51 

the effects that are constantly produced (in 
the physical world.) 

The dropping of water hollows out rocks; 
iron and brass are worn away by contact with 
the hands; wagon wheels that are bent with 
great effort will not under any circumstances 
resume their original shape; to straighten the 
crooked staves of actors is impossible. What 
is against nature is often better done when per- 
formed with due diligence than what is done in 
accordance with nature. 

Do only the above cited illustrations demon- 
strate the efficacy of industry and diligence? 
By no means. There are ten thousand others. 
For example, if the soil is good, it becomes un- 
productive through neglect; and the better it 
is naturally the faster it degenerates for lack of 
attention. Though it be hard and rough beyond 
common, yet if carefully cultivated it at once 
produces excellent crops. What tree when ne- T 
glected does not become crooked and unfruitful ? nature an( j 
Yet the same tree, after receiving the proper brutes, 
care, bears fruit to maturity. Is the greatest 
strength of body not undermined and even en- 
tirely wasted by neglect, indolence and bad 
habits? What constitution is so weak that it 
does not gain materially in vigor by gymnastics 
and training? What horses, if properly man- 
aged when foals, are not obedient to their riders ? 
And will not the same, if left untrained, turn out 
stubborn and fractious? Why need we be sur- 
drised at other things when we see many of the 



52 Plutarch on Education 

fiercest wild beasts become tame and docile with 
proper effort ? That was a judicious answer the 
Thessalian made when asked which of the Thes- 
salians were most civilized. "Those who have 
ceased to make war," replied he. 

But why multiply words. Character is formed 
by long continued habit (*7#o<?) so that one 
would not be far wrong if he were to call the 
resulting virtues (rjduco<;) the virtues of use and 
wont (eOitcai). After citing one more illustra- 
tion, I shall desist from further pursuing this 
part of my subject. Lycurgus, the lawgiver of 
the Lacedaemonians, took two pups from the 
same litter and brought them up in an entirely 
different manner; by which means he made one 
a greedy devourer of dainties and a good-for- 
nothing; the other efficient in the tracking and 
catching of game. Afterward, when a number 
of Lacedaemonians were once assembled in the 
same place, he said: "Of great influence for the 
begetting of virtue, ye men of Lacedaemon, are 
habit (e#o?) training (Traihela), instruction 
(hihaaicavia), and mode of life. This I shall now 
The time make evident to you." Then bringing the two 

to begin an pups he placed immediately before them a dish 

education. and a hare: the one darted after the hare; the 

other made a rush for the dish. To the Lace- 
daemonians who were still in doubt what he 
meant by this and what he wanted to demon- 
strate with the two young dogs, Lycurgus said: 
"These two animals are sprung from the same 
parents, but they received an entirely different 



The Education of Boys 53 

bringing-up. The one has become a greedy 
devourer of dainties, the other a good hunter." 
This is what I had to say in regard to habit and 
manner of life. 

V. 

Next in order I shall speak of alimentation. 
In my opinion mothers ought themselves to 
feed their children and give them the breast. 
They will show greater affection and more so- 
licitude by manifesting their love for their 
children from the "tender nails" (as the proverb 
put it). Wet-nurses and governesses have a 
counterfeit and spasmodic affection because 
they love for hire. Nature also shows that 
mothers ought to suckle and bring up what they 
have borne; for to this end she has provided ev- 
ery animal that brings forth young, with milk 
as a nutriment. In like manner she has wisely 
furnished women with two breasts, so that in 
case they bear twins, these may have two foun- 
tains of nourishment. But apart from this, 
mothers will feel more kindly toward their chil- 
dren and deal more patiently with them (than 
hirelings) . 

There is surely nothing strange in this, for 
nurture in common is a sort of bond of mutual 
good will. Even brutes when separated from 
those with which they have been bred manifest 
a longing for the absent. I repeat then what 
seems to me particularly important that mothers 
should nurse their own children. If for any 



54 Plutarch on Education 

reason this is impossible, whether on account 
of feeble health (for this is sometimes the case) , 
or because they desire to have other children, 
they ought at least not to entrust their offspring 
to any nurses or governesses that may offer but 
to select them with great care. 

In the first place, they ought to be Greek by 
birth and training. For just as it is necessary 
to mold the members of the body from childhood 
in order that they may grow straight and with- 
out deformity, so it is equally important to train 
and develop harmoniously from the beginnnig 
the disposition and character of children. 
Youth is pliable and easily molded. Into the 
tender minds of the young instruction is in- 
stilled without difficulty; but whatever is hard 
is not easily rendered ductile. Just as seals are 
pressed upon soft wax, so instruction (/ta^o-t?) is 
impressed upon the minds of children while 
they are still in the plastic state. The divine 
Plato seems to me to have very wisely warned 
nurses against telling children all kinds of stories 
lest they should fill their minds from the very 
outset with folly and corruption. The poet 
Phokylides has also uttered a judicious warning 
when he says : 

"Even a child should learn what is useful." 

VI. 

Nor must I omit to insist that the boys who 
are to attend upon the pupils and who are to be 
brought up with them shall be of good character; 



The Education of Boys 55 

that they shall speak Greek and enunciate dis- 
tinctly, lest by associating with foreigners and 
persons of rude manners (to ?/#o?) they too ac- 
quire somewhat of their coarseness. The pro- 
verb not unaptly says: 

"If you associate with a lame man you will 
learn to limp." 

VII. 

When they arrive at a suitable age to be put 
in charge of an attendant (iraiS-ar/ayo?) , the 
greatest care should be exercised in the selection 
of these persons, lest inadvertently the boys be 
placed under the tutelage of. foreign or untrust- 
worthy slaves. What is done at present by many 
men is in the highest degree absurd. They select 
from among their slaves, some to work in the 
fields, some for service at sea, and some to look 
after their merchandise. They pick out others 
to oversee their household affairs and still others 
to manage their finances. But if they happen 
to have a slave who is given to drink and glut- 
tony, who is in fact good for nothing, to this fel- 
low they assign the oversight of their boys. A 
good attendant ought to be such a person as 
Phoenix the tutor of Achilles was. 

But what I regard as most important of all 
and the cap-stone of everything I have said, I 
have yet to mention. Teachers for boys are to What a 
be sought who are of blameless life and of the pedagogue 
best experience (or reputation) ; for the source s ou e ' 
and root of all that is most excellent in the char- 



56 Plutarch on Education 

acter is to be found in the right kind of education 
and training. For just as the husbandman 
fixes stakes close by young trees and plants, so 
judicious instructors fix in the minds of the 
young, precepts and exhortations in order that 
supported by these a right character may grow 
up. 

As matters stand at present one can justly 
and severely censure those fathers who, without 
carefully scrutinizing the persons about to in- 
struct their boys, either through ignorance, or 
as often happens through lack of experience, en- 
trust them to disreputable and notoriously 
unfit persons. Still, it is not so reprehensible 
if they do this from lack of judgment — what is 
the highest folly is when they have been informed 
of the unfitness and at the same time of the evil 
repute of instructors nevertheless do intrust 
their boys to them, influenced, sometimes, by 
the flattery of those who have their own ends 
to gain or because they do not want to say no 
to the entreaties of friends. 

Persons who act in this way do exactly like 
a sick man who passes by the very person able 
to restore him to health and, merely to gratify 
some friend, employs a man who, by his ignor- 
ance, may utterly undo him; or like one who 
turns his back upon the best pilot and takes the 
worse one because some friend wants him to 
do so. O Jupiter and all ye gods; can it be that 
any one who is worthy to be called father should 
regard as of more importance the good-will of a 



The Education of Boys 57 

petitioner than the education (iraiSevais) of his 
children? Very fittingly the well known So- 
crates used to say that if it were possible he Socrates, 
would go to the highest place in Athens and cry 
out: "O men, what are ye striving for? You 
who are giving your entire attention to the ac- 
quisition of wealth, but for the same sons to 
whom you must leave your possessions you care 
little." 

To this I should like to add that such fathers 
act like a person who takes good care of his shoes 
but neglects his feet. Many fathers go to such 
extremes in their love of money and their hatred 
of children that, in order to save expense, they 
employ men who are entirely unfit to be in- 
structors and thus buy ignorance cheap. Ap- 
ropos of this matter, Aristippus administered a 
rebuke that was not only not undeserved but 
that was wholly appropriate, to a father who 

lacked both intelligence and sense. When a „ e , 

. , . ° , . , . . . Socratic who 

man of this stamp, I say, asked him how much tau „j lt f or 

he would want for educating his son, Aristippus p ay . 
replied: "A thousand drachmas." "Great 
heavens," was the reply, "what an exorbitant 
price! Why for this sum I can buy a slave." 
"Better still," replied the philosopher, "you will 
have two slaves; your son will be one and your 
purchase the other." 

Is it not supremely absurd to accustom chil- 
dren to take food with their right hands and to 
upbraid them when they stretch forth the left, 
but to pay little attention as to whether they 



58 



Plutarch on Education 



hear right and wise precepts? What usually 
happens to those short-sighted fathers who bring 
up their sons badly and educate them worse, 
I shall now proceed to state. When these have 
reached the age of manhood they will have none 
of a healthful and well ordered mode of life but 
give themselves over to disorderly and slavish 
pleasures. Then at last do parents begin to 
feel regret for having neglected the education of 
their children when they receive no good from 
them and have bitter sorrow for the misdeeds 
they commit. Some of them become attached 
to flatterers and parasites, men whose manner 
of life deserves only execration because they are 
seducers and corrupters of youth; others take 
up with lewd women and harlots who waste 
their substance; others become spendthrifts; 
while still others plunge into gambling and fast 
living. Some give themselves over to even more 
reckless iniquities by becoming adulterers and 
destroyers of homes, often paying with their 
lives for a single gratification. Had these per- 
sons devoted themselves to the serious study of 
philosophy, they would probably not have made 
themselves the ready panderers to such vices. 
They would at least have learned the admonition 
of Diogenes who somewhat coarsely but never- 
theless truthfully said: "Enter a brothel, boy, 
and you shall find that there is no difference 
between what is dear and what is cheap." 



The Education of Boys 59 

VIII. 

Summing up then, I assert — and I affirm 

that my conclusion is to be regarded rather as an 

oracular utterance than as mere admonition — 

that the one thing which is first and middle and 

last in these matters is judicious training from 

infancy (aycoyij) and the right sort of education 

(watBeia). And I declare that these two are 

the begetters and coadjutors of virtue and a 

happy life. All other blessings that a man may 

gain are perishable and insignificant, unworthy 

of our serious consideration or effort. Noble 

birth is honorable, but it is an honor that comes 

to us from our ancestors. Riches are valuable, 

but they are the gift of fortune; and fortune 

often takes away wealth from those who posess 

it and hands it over to those who do not expect 

it. Besides, great wealth is a target for cheats 

and swindlers, for vicious slaves and sycophants; 

and what is worst of all, wealth is often found 

in the hands of the vilest. A great name is 

much to be coveted, but it is unstable. Beauty 

is worth striving for, but it is fleeting. Health ™ „ ama 

. ° ine supreme 

is precious, but it is changeable. Strength is good, 
to be envied, but it wastes away by disease and 
old age. If any one prides himself on his 
strength of body he ought to know that he is 
very foolish. What does the strength of a man 
amount to when compared with that of other 
animals? for example, that of elephants, bulls 
and lions? A liberal education and mental cul- 



60 Plutarch on Education 

ture alone of all things within our reach are im- 
mortal and divine. 

There are two faculties in the constitution of 
man that are supreme: reason and language. 
Reason is the master of language and language 
is the servant of reason. Reason can not be de- 
stroyed by misfortune nor taken away by cal- 
umny, nor enfeebled by disease, nor impaired 
by old age. Reason alone grows young with 
advancing years, and time which bears along 
everything else, adds to old age wisdom and ex- 
perience. War that sweeps away all things 
else and destroys like a mountain torrent is 
powerless to deprive us of a liberal education. 
(jraiheia) . 

Stilpo of Megara seems to me to have made 
a reply, on one occasion, that is worthy of re- 
membrance. When Demetrius had taken the 
city and leveled it with the ground he asked 
Stilpo if he had lost anything. "Nothing at 
all," was the answer "for one can not make 
booty of worth." Socrates also once made a 
reply that is in full accord with that of Stilpo. 
When some one asked him — it was Georgias, if 
I mistake not — his opinion of the Great King 
(meaning the king of Persia), and whether he 
regarded him as a fortunate man, he replied: 
"I do not know how matters stand with him in 
respect to character and culture" (or virtue and 
learning). For he maintained that a man's 
good fortune consists in these and not in mere 
incidental possessions. 



The Education of Boys 61 

IX. 

As I am firmly convinced that there is nothing 
more important than the education of children, 
I again urge that it would be healthful and ra- 
tional if sons were kept aloof as far as pos- 
sible from frivolous popular assemblies; since 
what is agreeable to the multitude is disagree- 
able to the wise. Euripides endorses my sen- 
timents with the words: 

"I have no skill to speak before a throng: 
My tongue is loosed with equals, and those few. 
And reason: they that are among the wise Hippol. 
Of none account, to mobs are eloquent." 

I observe that those who are most concerned 
to say what will please and gratify promiscuous 
assemblies also frequently degenerate into reck- 
lessness and sensuality. This is quite in accord- 
ance with the nature of things. For if men, in 
their eagerness to furnish gratification to others, 
neglect what is noble and honorable they will 
hardly make more of an upright and well-or- 
dered life than of personal delectation and lux- 
ury, or prefer self-control to mere sensual pleas- 
ure. 

In addition to this it is seemly that boys 
should neither say nor do what is improper, 
according to the proverb: "What is excellent is 
difficult." Inconsiderate talk (or perhaps, off- Garrulity to 
hand speech-making) is often evidence of heed- be avoided, 
lessness and of a want of principle, since there 
is no knowing where to begin or where to leave 



62 Plutarch on Education 

off. Aside from other errors, those who talk 
without reflection and preparation fall into the 
habit of endless repetition and tautology; but 
careful consideration keeps the speaker within 
suitable bounds, 
^ericles Pericles, as we have often heard, when called 

Demosthenes. upon by the people to speak, frequently refused, 
with the remark that he was not prepared. In 
like manner Demosthenes who shaped his public 
career after that of Pericles, being once pressed 
by the Athenians for his advice, replied: "I 
am not ready to give it." It may be however 
that this is a fictitious and apocryphal tradition ; 
yet in the speech against Midias he clearly sets 
forth the need of preparation for he says: "I 
acknowledge, O men of Athens, that I have made 
careful preparation, and I do not deny that so 
far as lay in my power, I have studied this case. 
I should be but a poor wight if, after what I have 
suffered and am still suffering, I were indifferent 
to the manner in which I shall speak to you." 

It is not wise to condemn readiness of speech 
entirely; nor would I affirm that the gift is not 
to be put to use on suitable occasions. I cnly 
say that it is to be used like a medicine. In 
truth, I do not think any one ought to speak 
on any subject that may come up, before attain- 
ing the age of manhood; then when the talent 
has become firmly rooted and a suitable occasion 
offers, it is entirely in order to speak freely what 
one has in mind. Just as persons who have 
for a long time been in fetters are not able to 



The Education of Boys 63 

walk even after they have been unbound but 
shamble along and even fall down, so those who 
for a long time have kept their speech in bonds, 
as it were, show constraint in their manner of 
utterance, if on occasion they are called to say 
anything without premeditation. To permit 
mere boys to speak on the spur of the moment 
is to give occasion to a vast amount of insipid 
phrasemaking. It is related of a wretched paint- 
er that on one occasion, pointing to a picture, 
he said to Apelles: "This I have just now paint- 
ed". To which the reply was: "Even if you 
had not told me, I should have known that you 
had painted it in a hurry. My wonder is that Apelles. 
you did not paint more like it in the same 
time." 

But coming back again to my admonition at 
the beginning of this discourse: though I would 
urge the young to be on their guard against 
and avoid a theatrical and bombastic style, I 
should, on the other hand, insist with equal As to style. 
earnestness, that speakers keep themselves free 
from and eschew a common-place and jejune 
manner. A heavy style is unsuited to public 
affairs and one that is unduly dry makes no im- 
pression. For just as the body should not only 
be sound but strong also, discourse should like- 
wise not only be without blemishes; it should, 
in addition, be vigorous. A safe course is 
merely commended : what is attended with some 
danger is admired besides. The same opinion 
I also hold regarding the mind of the speaker: 



64 Plutarch on Education 

it should be neither over-bold nor spiritless and 
unduly lacking in self-assertion. The former 
leads to impertinence; the latter to a slavish 
obsequiousness. True art consists in finding 
the golden mean in everything. While I am 
still upon the subject of education, I may take 
occasion to express my opinion on this point, 
namely, that a monotonous manner in compo- 
sition is, in the first place, no slight evidence of 
a lack of genuine culture (a/xovo-ia) ( besides which, 
in delivery, it produces satiety and at best can 
not be long endured. In everything monotony 
surfeits and irks while variety is agreeable, not 
only in other things bnt especially in what we 
see and hear. 

X. 

While it is important that the education of the 
free born youth be not deficient in any one sub- 
ject coming within the circle of knowledge, and 
while it is equally important that he receives 
some instruction in all of them though it be 
merely a taste (for the attainment of proficiency 
in all is impossible), it is to philosophy that he 
should give his chief attention. I will express 
my thought by means of a figure. It is a fine 
thing to sail around among many cities, but it is 
important to dwell in the best. (Here there is 
a lacuna in the original text). Very appro- 
priately did the philosopher Bion declare that 
when the suitors were unable to get into the 
company of Penelope they associated with her 



The Education of Boys 65 

maid servants; so those who are incapable of 
comprehending philosophy give themselves up 
to other branches of instruction that are of no 
value. 

It is important then to make philosophy the 
sum and substance of all education. For the pv-'iosoDhv 
care of the body, men have discovered two de- t ^ e croW n- 
partments of knowledge: the medical art and ing glory, 
gymnastics. The former keeps it in health, the 
latter gives it strength. But for the infirm- 
ities of the soul (psyche) philosophy is the only 
medicament. Through it and by means of it 
we are enabled to distinguish what is honorable 
from what is base; what is just from what is 
unjust: in short, what we are to strive for from 
what we ought to shun. Philosophy teaches 
us how to deport ourselves toward the gods, 
toward parents, toward the aged, what should 
be our attitude toward the laws, toward stran- 
gers, toward those in authority, toward friends, 
toward wives and children and other members 
of our household. Philosophy teaches us to 
reverence the gods, to honor parents, to be re- 
spectful toward the aged, to obey the laws, to 
be subject to those in authority over us, to love 
our friends, to demean ourselves decorously 
toward women (or perhaps, our wives), to be 
affectionate toward children and to treat slaves 
kindly. 

But most important of all — philosophy teaches 
us not to be unduly elated when fortune smiles 
upon us nor excessively dejected when mis- 



66 Plutarch on Education 

fortunes overtake us; not to go to extremes ir 
our pleasures and not to lose our self-control ir 
anger. These are the chiefest gains that accrue 
to a man from the serious study of philosophy 
To be generous when it is well with him is the 
mark of true manhood, and to be without envy 
is the characteristic of one who is amenable 
to reason; to subject the passions to the control 
of the regulative faculty shows the sage, while to 
be able to restrain one's anger is no common 
virtue. I regard as perfect men, those who can 
combine and commingle the art of government 
with philosophy, for in my opinion they are able 
to attain the two greatest blessings within hu- 
man reach: a regime under which each shall 
be helpful to all, and a peaceful and quiet life 
for the pursuit of philosophy. 

There are three courses of life open to our 
choice : the practical, the contemplative and one 
The modes given to the pleasures (of the senses) . Of these 

of life. the last-named bears the brand of the slave and 

the mere animal. A contemplative life, for the 
reason that it keeps aloof from practical affairs, 
is useless, while a practical life divorced from 
philosophy is without refinement and without 
culture. We should therefore strive to the best 
of our ability to take part in public affairs and 
to devote ourselves, so far as time and circum- 
stances will permit, to the study of philosophy. 
According to such principles Pericles regulated 
his life; so did likewise Archytas of Tarentum 



The Education of Boys 67 

and Dion the Syracusan and Epaminondas the 
Theban. The last two were disciples of Plato. 
I do not know that it is necessary to say any- 
thing more concerning education; yet in ad- 
dition to what has been said it will be useful 
and even essential not to neglect the acquisition 
of the ancient writers. It is important to make 
a collection of these as a farmer does of necessary 
implements; for in the same manner the use of 
books is a tool of education, and it is no small 
gain to draw knowledge from this source. 

XI. 

It is important, however, not to neglect bod- 
ily exercise. Boys should be placed under the Physical 
care of competent trainers in order that they training, 
may acquire both grace of movement and 
strength of body. The foundation of a vigor- 
ous old age is a sound body in youth. For just 
as we ought to prepare for storm while the weath- 
er is fair, so we ought also in youth to lay up 
good habits and moderation as a traveling sup- 
ply for old age. It is however an essential mat- 
ter to be judicious in the exercise of the body, 
since boys by becoming blunted in intellect 
through over-attention bestowed in this direc- 
tion neglect mental culture (iratBeia). Accord- 
ing to Plato, sleep and weariness are the enemies 
of knowledge. 

Passing this point I hasten to state what I 
consider more important than anything hitherto 
mentioned. Boys ought to be trained in those 



68 Plutarch on Education 

arts that will fit them to become efficient sol- 
diers, by engaging in contests in throwing the 
javelin, in archery and hunting. According to 
the proverb: "The possessions of those who 
are vanquished in battle are the prize of the 
victors." War demands a body that has not 
grown up in the shade. A lean soldier well 
trained in the art of war will put to rout a troop 
of athletes and enemies. 

If at this point some one should say: "You 
promised to give us directions for the proper ed- 
ucation of free-born youths, but now you are 
clearly ignoring the education of the poorer and 
lower classes and giving precepts that will bene- 
fit only the rich", the answer to this accusation 
is easy. I should be very glad if all in common 
could share a good education, but if some, for 
lack of means, are unable to follow my sugges- 
tions they should lay the blame on fate (tyche) 
not on me for giving such advice as I have done. 
Moreover even the poor should do all in their 
power to give their children the best education 
(aytoyri) . If they can not do this, let them at 
Advice to least do the utmost that their means will permit. 

6 P I mention this incidentally and now pass in or- 

der to such other matters as contribute to a 
well rounded education for the young. 

XII. 

I affirm that boys should be led on to the per- 
formance of noble actions by admonitions and 
arguments — most decidedly not by blows and 



The Education of Boys 69 

harsh treatment. I regard such treatment as 
more suitable to slaves than to free-born cit- 
izens. It blunts the sensibilities and engenders 
a distaste for labor. The cause is, in part, the 
pain produced by the blows inflicted; in part, 
by the feeling of shame arising from the rough Praise am i 
usage suffered. Commendations and censures, re P roof - 
praise and blame, are more efficacious with free 
men than any amount of harsh treatment. 
The former incite toward what is honorable; 
the latter deter from what is base. But reproof 
and praise are to be used both alternately and 
together. When boys become forward and over 
bold they should be made to feel shame by cen- 
sure, and in like manner they should be encour- 
aged with praise. It is well in this matter to 
follow the example of nurses who make babies 
cry and then to quiet them give them the breast. 
Boys should not however be made proud and 
overbearing by eulogies, for they readily be- 
come vain and puffed up by excessive laudation. 

XIII. 

In my time I have known fathers whose ex- 
cessive affection became the cause of the loss of 
affection. What I wish to say I can make clear- 
er by the use of an example. In their eagerness 
to advance their boys in all branches they over- 
load them with work. The boys are thus in 
danger of becoming discouraged; and being 
moreover weighed down with a sense of their 
unfortunate situation do not receive instruction 



70 Plutarch on Education 

with alacrity. For just as plants are nourished 
by a moderate quantity of moisture but are 
spoiled by an excess, so is the mind strengthened 
by moderate exertion but overwhelmed by an 
excess of labor. Boys must therefore be given 
periods of respite from their tasks; for we should 
remember that our entire life is made up of rest 
and work. On this account we not only have 
our business hours but also our periods of sleep. 
There is not always war but peace too ; not only 
foul weather but fair; not only hard work but 
likewise holiday; in short, relaxation is the sea- 
soning of toil. One can see that this is the case 
Work and n0 ^ on ly with living beings but likewise with 

play. lifeless things. We relax the bowstring and the 

string of the lyre in order that we may stretch 
them again. In fact, just as the body is kept 
in a state of health by alternate fasting and eat- 
ing, so also is the mind by relaxation and labor. 
And those fathers are also deserving of censure 
who commit their sons to personal attendants 
and teachers without at all seeing to their 
studies with their own eyes or hearing them re- 
cite. Such parents come far short of their duty. 
They ought every few days to put their sons to 
the test and not to place entire dependence upon 
the fidelity and judgment of a hireling. The 
latter will moreover perform their duties more 
conscientiously if they know that they shall be 
called to account. A shrewd remark made by 
a certain groom is appropriate here: he said 
that nothing fattens a horse like the eye of the 



The Education of Boys 71 

king. Above everything else, it is important 
to train and exercise the memory of the young, 
since it is the store-house of education (Traihe(a) . 
For this reason the myth-makers have con- 
ceived Memory (Mnemosyne) to be the mother 
of the muses, indicating in this way figuratively Importance 
but plainly that nothing so much feeds and of memor y- 
strengthens (the psychic powers) as the memory. 
A boy's memory is to be exercised whether he 
remembers easily or forgets readily: in one case 
we improve what is naturally good; in the other 
we endeavor to supply a defect of nature. Thus 
some will become better than others while others 
will surpass themselves. Hesiod has finely said : 
"If you add a little to a little and do so often, 
it will soon get big." Fathers should not forget 
that memory is not only an important faculty 
in education (iraiheia) t but should remember that 
it contributes no small part to the successful 
management of the affairs of practical life, since 
the recollection of past events is a good coun- 
sellor in what is to come. 

XIV. 

Boys should also be kept away from filthy 
language, for speech, according to Democritus, 
is the shadow of deeds. (Or, this passage may 
mean that they should be prohibited from the 
use of foul language). They should likewise 
accustom themselves and be habituated to an 
affable and considerate manner of expressing 
themselves, since nothing is so disagreeable as 



72 Plutarch on Education 

a rude and abrupt style of address. In addi- 
tion to this, boys should not make themselves 
objects of aversion to their companions by al- 
ways refusing to yield on every point in their 
discussions. It is not alone victory that is 
honorable; defeat is equally so when victory 
might do harm, since there is in reality such a 
thing as a Cadmean victory (when the victor 
comes off worse than the vanquished). I can 
cite the wise Euripides as a witness to this fact 
when he says: 
Protesilaus. "^ two contend with words and one of them 

becomes angry, he is the wiser who does not 
contradict." 

Furthermore, what I have now to speak of is 
not one whit less important than anything that 
precedes but is even more to be heeded and put 
in practice. Boys should accustom themselves 
to a modest demeanor, to bridle the tongue, to 
control their temper and to keep the mastery 
over their hands. Let us consider the import- 
ance of each of these injunctions. The points 
will be made clearer by some examples. 

Putting the last precept first, I may say that 

S th Tf some men, by laying hands on what did not be- 

of Lysander l° n g to them, have obscured the glory of their 

ch. 16. former deeds. Thus Gylippus the Spartan was 

compelled to go into exile because he had taken 

public money dishonestly. 

To control one's temper is verily the mark of 
a sage. Socrates was once kicked by an im- 
pertinent and disgusting young man. Noticing 



TJie Education of Bovs l:\ 

that his friends were angry and excited and 
wanted to hale the culprit before a magistrate, Socrates and 
he remarked: "If an ass had kicked me should the dicker, 
you have thought that I ought to have kicked 
him in return?" Verily, the fellow did not get 
off without the punishment he deserved; for 
everybody got to jeering him and calling him 
the Kicker. So he hanged himself. When 
Aristophanes brought his Clouds upon the stage, 
a play in which he heaped all sorts of abuse on 
Socrates, one of the spectators who greatly en- 
joyed the performance called out: "Oh Socrates, 
doesn't this make you angry?" "Not by a 
great deal," was the reply, "for I am ridiculed 
in the theater as if it were a big banquet" (when 
most of the guests are more or less drunk). 
Archytas of Tarentum and Plato once acted 
very much the same way. The former, on re- 
turning from a war, finding his property very Archytas. 
much neglected, called his steward and said to 
him: "You would pay the penalty for this if I 
were not too angry." Plato, on one occasion, 
being very much incensed at a gluttonous and 
shameless slave, called Speusippus his sister's 
son and said to him: "Take this fellow away and 
beat him, for I am too much wrought up." 

Some one may say that such actions are dif- 
ficult and hard to imitate. I admit it; yet every 
one of us ought to try to the extent of his ability 
to pattern after models like these in order to sub- 
due the violence of ungovernable and un- 
reasoning passion, even if we are not the equals 



74 Plutarch on Education 

of these men either in knowledge or nobility of 
character. We ought none the less than they, 
just as if we were priests of the gods and torch- 
bearers of wisdom, so far as in us lies, to imitate 
them and to strive to follow their example. 

Then, again the government of the tongue — 
for of this according to my plan I have yet to 
speak — is by no means to be regarded as a small 
and unimportant matter. Far from it. Well- 
timed silence is a mark of wisdom and better 
than the most eloquent speech. For this reason, 
it seems to me, the ancients instituted those 
well-known mysterious rites, namely, in order 
that, becoming accustomed to silence with re- 
spect to them for fear of the gods, we might 
also learn to preserve faithfully the secrets 
and mysteries of human affairs. 

Then again no one has ever been sorry for 
keeping silent, but very many for the opposite 
reason. It is easy to keep a secret that has been 
entrusted to us; it is impossible to recall it 
when once it is divulged. I have heard of many 
people who fell into the greatest misfortunes 
through their looseness of tongue. 

Omitting the rest, I will mention here one or 

two merely as samples. When Ptolemy Phil- 

adelphus had married his sister, Sotades made 

The Tongue. an unseemly jest about the event. The result 

Ptolemy of it was that he had to pass many years in 

and Sotades. prison, thus paying the penalty for his ill-timed 

remark. Though he had given others occasion 



The Education of Boys 75 

to laugh, he himself wept a long time because 
of it. 

For a like and closely related expression Theoc- 
ritus was compelled to undergo a similar though 
much severer punishment. When Alexander 
had ordered the Greeks to prepare purple gar- 
ments in order that after he returned from his 
victories over the barbarians the occasion might 
be fitly celebrated, and the different nations 
were making contributions man by man for this 
purpose, he exclaimed: "I used to be in doubt 
what Homer meant by the purple death, but 
now I fully understand him." By this utterance 
he made Alexander his enemy. He also rid- 
iculed Antigonus the king of Macedon, who had 
but one eye, for this defect and thus incurred his 
fierce resentment. He sent his chief cook 
Eutropion with the request that he (Theocritus) 
pay him a visit for mutual entertainment. 
When the cook had delivered his message and 
had gone several times on the same errand he 
received the reply: "I know very well that you 
want to serve me up raw before the cyclop," 
in this way taunting the king for being one-eyed, 
and the messenger for being a cook. Hereupon 
the latter remarked: "For this you shall not keep 
your head and you shall pay the penalty for Theocritus. 
your impudent tongue and your folly." When 
the jest was reported to the king he sent a man 
to put Theocritus to death. 

Above everything else it is a sacred duty to 
accustom boys to speak the truth, since lying 



76 Plutarch on Education 

is the mark of a servile disposition; it deserves 
to be abhorred by everybody and is not to be 
condoned in the meanest slave. 

XV. 

(In this section our author deals briefly with 
that phase of Greek social life which probably 
never had its exact counterpart elsewhere and 
which it is impossible for us to comprehend 
fully: the intimate relation that frequently ex- 
isted between a youth and an older man. He 
is not clear whether he ought to commend or 
condemn such companionships. When he re- 
flects that they have not unfrequently led to 
gross immorality and to flagrant abuses he feels 
called upon to condemn them; on the other 
hand, when he recalls that many young men have 
been drawn into paths of virtue and inspired 
to praiseworthy and even glorious deeds for 
the sake of their country, he is inclined to com- 
mend such friendships, or at least not to deliver 
a verdict against them.) 

XVI. 

Concerning the preceding matter, then, let 
every one hold that opinion which after a careful 
examination of the facts he believes to be just. 
But for my part, since I have been speaking of 
the orderly conduct and good behavior of boys, 
I may as well pass to the age of youth and say 
a few words on the general subject. I have 
often had occasion to censure those persons who 



The Education of Boys 77 

introduced the vicious custom of providing boys 
with personal attendants and teachers, but who 
permit striplings to follow their own evil in- 
clinations, when the fact is that these should be 
more carefully watched and looked after than Striplings 
boys. Who does not know that the faults and often worse 
peccadilloes of small boys are trifling and alto- than boys * 
gether venial, such perhaps as uncivil behavior 
toward the personal attendant or deceit or dis- 
obedience to the instructors? But the aber- 
rations of those who are almost grown to man- 
hood are often excessive and in the highest de- 
gree damnable: gluttony, pilfering from par- 
ents, gambling, revellings, drunkenness, forni- 
cation and adultery. 

It is therefore important to bind and keep 
in check with the greatest care those impetuous 
and mischief-breeding desires. At this time of 
life the blind impulse for sensual gratification 
is strong and unruly and in need of check-rein. 
Those parents who do not strenuously restrain 
these irrational psychic forces give their sons 
free hand for the commission of follies and 
crimes. It is important therefore that those 
fathers who are endowed with good sense should 
watch and be on their guard and strive earnestly 
to teach their sons self-control by appeals to 
reason, by threats and by entreaties, by pointing 
out to them as warning examples the misfortunes 
into which those have fallen who yielded to 
their passions as well as the commendation 
and honorable fame gained by those who kept 



78 Plutarch on Education 

their passions in check. The elementary prin- 
ciples, so to speak, are two: the hope of reward 
and the fear of punishment: the former is more 
of an incentive to noble deeds; the latter keeps 
us back from doing what is base. 

XVII. 

It may be stated on general principles that 
boys ought not to be permitted to associate 
with persons of bad character, for they are al- 
most certain to acquire some of their habits 
Pythagoras. by a sort of infection. This is what Pythagoras 
meant by those dark sayings of his, a few of 
which I here subjoin together with their inter- 
pretation. They will contribute not a little 
to turn the scales in favor of virtue. 

For example; "Do not taste black-tails," 
(a kind of fish), which means: Do not associate 
with men whose characters are black. "Do 
not pass the barrier," which means: Have the 
most scrupulous regard to probity and do not 
pass the bounds thereof. "Do not sit on a 
choinix," that is: Flee idleness and see to it 
that you provide your necessary sustenance. 
"Do not give your right hand to everybody," 
that is, Do not be too free with your friendships. 
"Do not wear a tight ring," which means, Take 
good care of your earthly substance lest you 
come to want (and be no longer a free man.) 

"Do not strike into the fire with a sword," 
that is, Do not irritate an angry man, for this 
is unwise, but give way to those who are in a 



The Education of Boys 79 

rage. "Do not devour your heart," which 
means, Do not wear out your life and exhaust 
yourself with cares. "Abstain from beans," 
that is, Do not take part in politics; because 
formerly public officers were chosen by voters 
who used beans for ballots. "Do not cast food 
into a filthy vessel," which signifies that it is 
unwise to employ fine words when talking to 
person of base minds. Speech is the aliment 
of the mind and vileness befouls it. "Do not 
turn back when you have reached the boundary,' 
which means that when men are about to die, 
and see the end of life near at hand, they should 
bear their fate with fortitude and resignation. 

I now return to the main thought of my dis- 
course as set forth in the beginning and repeat 
what I said there, that it is important to keep 
boys from all association with bad men but 
especially from flatterers. I have frequently 
enjoined this upon fathers and I repeat it here. Cursed be 
There is not a creature more pestiferous nor one flatterers, 
that more quickly and in a more headlong man- 
ner plunges the young into destruction than 
flatterers. Flatterers utterly ruin fathers as 
well as sons; they make old age full of sorrow 
and the period of youth none the less so, by 
holding out pleasures to the unwary as a bait 
to them for the acceptance of their counsels. 
The fathers of the rich exhort their sons to 
sobriety; flatterers encourage drunkenness. The 
former commend self-control ; the latter, reckless 
living. Those strive to impress upon their sons 



80 Plutarch on Education 

the importance of economy; the latter praise 
lavish expenditure. The former encourage in- 
dustry; the latter, idleness by reiterating that 
life is only a point of time. They say that as 
long as one lives he should not miss the chief 
purpose of life which is sensual gratification. 
"What need we care about a father's threats. 
He is an old dotard on the brink of the grave 
whom we shall soon take on our shoulders and 
carry to his last resting-place, the sooner the 
better." 

Some will even lead the young into dens of 
harlots and go so far as to seek to seduce them 
by means of their own wives. They rob or 
defraud fathers of the portion they had laid 
aside for old age. Accursed is the tribe of those 
who simulate friendship, yet have no concep- 
tion of what manly frankness means. They are 
flatterers of the rich and deriders of the poor, 
who with siren-like allurements entice the young 
and chuckle with glee when those who feed upon 
them begin to laugh. By living solely to do the 
bidding of the rich, though free by condition, 
they are slaves by choice. When they are not 
insulted they imagine themselves insulted if 
they are not supported in idleness as their 
people's expense. Therefore every father who 
is solicitous for the proper bringing-up (evaymyia) 
of his children will ward off this pestilential 
brood: and he will not the less keep at a dis- 
tance the depravity of their sons' companions, 



Tlie Education of Boys 81 

since these often ruin the most promising natural 
parts. 

XVIII. 

What I have said is useful and profitable: 
what I am about to say has reference to human 
nature in general. Let me repeat once more 
that fathers ought by all means to be neither 
harsh nor austere nor unsympathetic; they 
should at all times be indulgent toward the 
peccadilloes of youth, remembering that they too 
were once young. Just as physicians disguise 
their bitter medicines with sweet mixtures and 
thus make a bridge from the agreeable to the 
useful, so fathers ought to mingle the severity Do not drive, 
of punishment with gentleness, occasionally leao -- 
yielding to the impulses of youth, giving them 
the rein at times and at times again drawing 
them in. 

They should especially bear their failings with 
equanimity ; or if they can not do so and become 
angry on occasion, they ought quickly to sup- 
press their indignation. It is better that a 
father should be easily excited to anger than 
that he should be hard to appease; for a morose 
and unforgiving dispostion is no slight evidence 
of a natural dislike of children. 

It is advisable too sometimes to appear not 
to notice the misdeeds and failings of the young 
and to transfer the infirmities of advancing age 
in sight and hearing to things that have occurred, 
so that, though seeing what is going on, we shall 



82 Plutarch on Education 

seem not to see and hearing we shall appear not 
to hear. We bear with the foibles and failings 
of friends — shall we not be equally indulgent 
with children ? We do not punish a bibulous 
slave for every spree. If thou hast been econ- 
omical thou canst be lavish once in a while; 
if thou has been indignant, forgive also. Has 
your son with the help of a slave imposed on 
you, restrain your anger. Has he at times 
taken a span from the field, or has he returned 
with his breath betraying yesternight's debauch, 
say nothing about it; or if the perfume on his 
clothing tells the same tale, overlook it. It is 
in this way that fractious youth is tamed. 

XIX. 

Those who are given to a dissolute life and 
refuse to heed any admonitions can often be 
brought to their senses by wedlock. This is 
the most potent restraint of youth. But young 
men should not marry women who are much 
W dl ck c above them either by birth or fortune. It is a 
ommended. wise proverb that advises a man to choose his 

equal. Men who marry wives that are much 
their superiors in riches, often become, before 
they are aware of it, not the husbands of their 
wives but the slaves of their marriage portions. 

XX. 

I shall add a few words more to conclude my 
counsels. Before everything else fathers ought 
to be on their guard that their own conduct be 



The Education of 11 83 

in no way open to censure. They should strive- 
to the utmost to make themselves shining ex- 
amples to their children in order that these-, 
when looking into their own lives as into a S ^W 
mirror, may be turned not only from vile dec-' ! 
but from vile words also. Those fathers who ai " 
upbraid their sons for their misdemeanors and 
are themselves guilty of the same do not seem 
to be aware that they are merely denouncing 
themselves in the name of their children. Those 
men who live a life that is constantly open to 
criticism can not consistently correct even their 
slaves, much less their sons. 

More than this : they become guides, abettors 
and teachers of immorality; for where parents 
are without shame or scruple, the sons, in the 
very nature of the case, become still more shame- 
less. Surely it is in the highest degree im- 
portant that parents should put forth every 
effort to bring up their children properly. They 
will do well to pattern after the example of Eur- 
ydice who, though an Illyrian and an entire 
stranger to Greek letters, yet for the purpose 
of instructing her children devoted herself late 
in life to the systematic acquisition of knowl- 
edge. Fittingly does the following inscription, 
which she dedicated to the Muses, set forth her 
love for her children: 



84 Plutarch on Education 

"Eurydice of Hieropolis 
Hath, muse-inspired, devoted this; 
Of growing sons, when she beheld the needs, 
With toil acquired the art that treasures up 
men's deeds!" 

The carrying into effect all of the foregoing 
precepts is perhaps rather a pious aspiration 
than an achievement. The ability to put into 
practical use even the greater part of them is a 
piece of good fortune and requires constant 
watchfulness. But the work is not impossible of 
accomplishment for human endeavor. 



HOW TO HEAR LECTURES ON POETRY 

"That the unfettered development of the individual 
was the aim of Hellenism, and that the cities in which 
the Hellenic ideal was best realized were those in 
which the freest play was given to the individual to 
live his own life according to his own judgment, needs 
merely to be stated; it is a matter of universal agree- 
ment. There you have at once the strength and the 
weakness of Hellenism in the practical world of govern- 
ment. No other ancient people aimed so steadfastly 
as the Greeks at freedom as the greatest good in life, 
aad while it must be confessed that the order and even 
the safety of the State were sometimes jeopardized in 
the pursuit of individual freedom, and the freedom 
tended to degenerate into license and caprice, yet 
there Avas a certain atmosphere of liberty in a Greek 
city which is invigorating to breathe even in the pages 
of history, and which seems to have lasted even in re- 
mote lands and alien surroundings as long as any shad- 
ow of Hellenic society remained." — Ramsay, The 
Cities of St. Paul. 

I. 

If, as the poet Philoxenus says, Marcus 
Sedatus, those parts of flesh which are not 
flesh, taste the best, as do also those portions of 
fish which are not fish, let us leave the paradox 
to be explained by those whose palates are more introduction, 
sensitive than their hearts, according to a say- 
ing of Cato. But that young persons find more 
pleasure in and pay more earnest heed to phil- 
osophical discourses that are neither too strictly 
logical nor conducted with too great seriousne.-^, 
85 



86 Plutarch on Education 

is a plain fact to us. Not only do they read the 
Fables of Aesop and the works of the poets, 
the Abaris of Heracleides and the Lyko of Aristo, 
but they are delighted with the doctrine of souls 
as set forth in mythical stories. It is therefore 
not only important that they should conduct 
themselves like gentlemen when eating and 
drinking, but it is still more important to accus- 
tom them, when hearing or reading and enjoying 
that which is agreeable, to discriminate between 
the sensation of pleasure and what is useful and 
salutary. The gates of a city may be closed, 
yet this will not prevent it from being captured 
if the enemy slip in through a single one; neither 
will vigilance in regard to all assaults of pleasure 
keep a young man in the path of safety, if inad- 
vertently he yield to the enticements that enter 
his ears. 

Since the sense of hearing is so intimately re- 
lated to the control of the will, when it is not 
properly guarded, it brings the greater harm 
and detriment to him who is negligent. As it 
is perhaps not possible nor profitable to keep 
young men of the age of my Soclarus or of your 
Cleander from reading poetry we should at least 
recognize the fact that they need a guide in their 
reading more than they do in their walks. It 
seemed to me fitting therefore to write out and 
send to you the thoughts I recently expressed 
in my discourse on poetry. Take it, read it 
through, and if you find it not less useful than 
those charms called amethysts which some per- 



Hoiv to Hear Lectures on Poetry s7 

sons bind about themselves and take internally 
before drinking, give it to Cleander and put him 
on his guard in advance. His intellect is by 
no means sluggish; he is energetic in everything 
he undertakes and comprehends easily the gen- 
eral bearing of every question of this sort. The Danger in 
head of the polypus contains both what is good thc rca ' 1 " 1 ^' 
and what is bad, because it is very agreeable 
to the taste but produces uneasy sleep and fan- 
tastic and frightful dreams, it is said. In like 
manner there is much in poetry that is agreeable 
and profitable for the mind and heart of the 
young, but also not a little that is bewildering 
and misleading unless the study thereof be pur- 
sued in accordance with correct pedagogical 
principles. It can be truly said not only of the 
land of Egypt but also of poetry (according to 
Homer) that it produces: 

"Herbs in greatest plenty, many that are 
healing in the cup, and many that are baneful." 
"There are love and desire and loving converse, 
that steals the wits of even the wise," 

Its seductive influence does not readily be- 
guile the stupid and the silly. For this reason 
Simonides replied to him who asked him why 
the Thessalians were the only people he did not 
deceive, that they possessed altogether too 
little culture to be cajoled by him. Gorgias 
said that tragedy was a deception where the 
deceived is more just than the deceiver and he 
who is deceived is shrewder than he who is not 
deceived. Shall we therefore, as Ulysses did to 



88 Plutarch on Education 

his companions, stop the ears of the young with 
some kind of hard and insoluble wax, compel 
them to embark in the boat of Epic and push 
rapidly past (the land of ) poetry; or shall we 
not rather by equipping them and providing 
them with a just standard of judgment, warn 
them and put them on their guard that they 
may not be turned aside by that which is agree- 
able toward that which is harmful. 

"Nay, moreover, even Dryas' son, mighty 
Lykourgos" showed great good sense when he 
went about uprooting the vines because so many 
got drunk and made fools of themselves in 
preference to bringing the fountains nearer. 
He thus brought the people back to their senses 
by punishing a raving god, as Plato says, by 
one who is in his sober wits. For the mixing 
of water with wine takes away its harmful prop- 
erties without, at the same time, taking away 
what of nutriment it contains. Let us not 
therefore cut up (the vines) and take away al- 
Not all po- together the mellow wine of the Muses; but 

etry is to be wherever the mythological and dramatic ele- 
ments of poetry run riot and shoot up into rank 
weeds with unabashed insolence and where, 
under the influence of the desire to please, they 
bring forth what is contrary to probability, we 
should lay hands upon them, restrain them and 
bring them within the confines of reason. 

On the other hand, where poetry unites a 
measure of culture with what is graceful in dic- 
tion, or where the charm and attractiveness of 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 89 

language is not unfruitful and empty, there let 
us introduce and mingle philosophy with it. 

When the mandrake grows up with the vines 
and imparts strength to the wine, it produces a 
refreshing sleep to those who drink it. In like 
manner poetry, though taking its themes (\dyoi) 
from philosophy, by combining them with the 
fabulous, furnishes easy and agreeable matter of 
instruction (fiddrjcns) for the young. 

For this reason, those who purpose to devote 
themselves to philosophy should not eschew 
compositions in verse but should prepare them- 
selves for the study of philosophy by means of 
poetry, thus seeking and acquiring a fondness 
for the useful through the medium of the agree- 
able. Poetry of such a character as to render 
this impossible is to be opposed and avoided. 
This is the first principle of instruction, according 
to Sophocles: 

"Fitly 'tis said of ev'ry work that's done: 
Well will it end if it was well begun." 

II. 

In the first place when we induct a young man 
into the study of poetry we should thoroughly 
familiarize him with the fact and urge him to 
keep in mind the saying that the "poets tell 
many lies," in part designedly, in part unin- 
tentionally. They tell falsehoods intentionally 
because they think the truth less agreeable to 
the ear than fiction; and since most of them 



90 



Plutarch on Education 



Aristotle. 
Fiction and 
painting. 



Not all verse 
is poetry. 



recite their verses to gratify their auditors they 
treat their subjects accordingly. An actual 
occurrence can not be changed though the end 
be sad; an imaginary event can be easily modi- 
fied and transformed so as to bring a happy end- 
ing out of circumstances big with disaster. 

Neither meter nor style nor dignity of ex- 
pression nor apt metaphors nor harmony and 
appositeness in all its parts communicate so 
much grace and charm to a composition as myth- 
ology fitly introduced. Just as in pictures, color 
is more impressive than a mere outline because 
of its closer resemblance and its greater power 
to produce illusions, so in poetry when fiction 
is mingled with fact it becomes more impressive 
and is more attractive than a literary produc- 
tion, which, though clothed in rhyme and meter, 
is unpoetic and without invention. 

It is well known that Socrates was inspired 
by certain dreams to attempt poetic com- 
position; but because he had all his life been a 
champion of truth he was not able to invent a 
probable and clever fiction, and therefore put 
into verse the fables of Aesop since he did not 
regard that as poetry which is without inven- 
tion (or fiction). We know of sacrificial cere- 
monies without dances and unaccompanied with 
the music of pipes; but we know of no poetry 
without mythic tales and without the under- 
lying principles of fiction. The verse compo- 
sitions of Empedocles and of Parmenides, the 
works of Nicander on Antidotes and the collec- 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 91 

tion of Maxims by Theognis are discourses 
that have borrowed from poetry, meter and dig- 
nity of style, as a chariot, so to speak, in order 
not to be obliged to plod on foot. 

When therefore anything improper or unfit- 
ting is said in his poems by a distinguished 
author either about the gods or about divine 
beings or about virtue, he who accepts it as 
truth is easily misled and gets a false impression. 
On the other hand, he who always keeps in mind 
and clearly comprehends that the witchery of 
poetry lies in the fictitious elements will always 
be able to say to it: "O thou contrivance more 
cunning than a lynx. Why dost thou con- 
tract thine eyebrows as in jest ? Why dost thou 
pretend to instruct when thou dost only be- 
guile?" One who can speak thus will suffer no 
harm and believe nothing base. He will re- 
prove himself when he finds that he is afraid 
lest Poseidon should rend the earth and uncover 
Hades; and he will also restrain his anger against 
Apollo on account of the Achaeans, "Him 
whom Apollo himself celebrated in song, him 
whom he feasted, him to whom he said this, 
him also did he himself slay." He will no 
longer bewail departed Achilles and Agamemnon 
in the realm of Hades, as in their longing for 
life they stretch forth their feeble and nerveless 
hands. If at any time he finds himself per- 
turbed in mind and feels that he has been 
drugged he will not hesitate to say to himself: 
"But haste with all thine heart toward the sun- 



92 Plutarch on Education 

light, and mark all this, that even hereafter 
thou mayest tell it to thy wife." 

This is what Homer fittingly said with refer- 
ence to the nether world, in so far as what is 
Quotations fabulous is agreeable to feminine ears. It is 

rom Homer. for such things that the poets unintentionally 
drew on their imagination. Far more numer- 
ous, however, are those things which they do 
not invent, but themselves believe and accept 
for true and transmit to us under false colors. 

"And he set therein two lots of dreary death, 
one of Achilles, one of horse-taming Hector, 
and held them by the midst and poised. Then 
Hector's fate sank down and fell to the house 
of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him." 

Aeschylus composed an entire tragedy upon 
this passage which he called Psychostasis (Soul- 
weighing). He put on the balance of Zeus, 
on the one side Thetis and on the other side 
Eos, both sending up prayers for their warring 
sons. This fact is plain to all that poetry and 
fiction are composed in order to please or aston- 
ish the hearer or reader. This passage: "Zeus, 
even he that is men's dispenser of battle," and 
the following: "Zeus involves mortals in guilt 
when he wishes to destroy their house root and 
branch," doubtless express the opinion and be- 
lief of the poets who wish to transfer and impart 
to us their own delusions in regard to the gods 
and their ignorance of the same beings. Again, 
the marvellous tales about the realm of the dead 
and the employment of the epithets that are 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 93 

of themselves calculated to call up fears in the 
mind; the phantasms and images of burning 
rivers and desolate regions and fearful punish- 
ments, will not mislead many persons into be- 
lieving that they are not for the most part fab- 
ulous and that falsehood has not been mixed 
with them as it were poison with food. Neither 
Homer nor Pindar nor Sophocles believed what 
they said when they wrote: "Thence the slu| 
gish rivers of gloomy night belch forth illimit- 
able darkness," and: "Past the gloomy streams 
of Ocean and past the White Rock they sped," 
and: "And the narrow strait of Hades and past 
the tides of its abyss." 

Nor when they bewail death as something to 
be deplored or loss of burial as something dread- 
ful or as if full of fear they utter the words: 
"Leave me not behind unwept, unburied, when 
thou goest hence": and "His soul flew forth 
from his limbs and was gone to the house of 
Hades, wailing her fate, leaving her vigor and 
youth," and: "O slay me not untimely! Sweet Eun P ld 
is the light — constrain me not to see the nether 
gloom." These are the words of persons who 
have been misled and who are laboring under 
the delusion of false beliefs and mistaken views. 
They impress and disturb us the more for 
the reason that we have a natural sympathy 
with the suffering and the weakness which gives 
then utterance. 

With respect to such sayings, then, let us 
instruct the young from the very first that poetry 



94 Plutarch on Education 

is not much concerned about the truth; and 
furthermore, that truth is hard to run down 
and capture even for those who give their whole 
attention to it and to the search for what really 
is (the truth) according to their own confession. 
Let them always keep in mind the words of 
Empedocles: "Truth is not to be perceived with 
mortal eyes, nor can it be grasped with the 
mind;" and likewise those of Xenophanes: 
"That man has not been born, nor will be, who 
clearly apprehends what I am about to say 
about the gods and about all things (the uni- 
verse). And in truth Socrates also once de- 
clared with an oath, according to Plato, his ig- 
norance in such matters. The young will place 
less reliance on the poets as knowing anything 
about those things when they see even the phil- 
osophers getting dizzy. 

III. 

We shall put the young man still more on his 
guard when we are inducting him into the study 
of poetry if we designate it as an imitative art 
and its effect as corresponding to painting. 
And let him not only heed the current opinion 
that poetry is a speaking pictorial art and that 
painting is mute poetry, but let us further in- 
struct him that when we look upon a lizard in a 
painting, or an ape, or the face of a Thersites we 
may experience and feel admiration, not because 
of their beauty but because of their verisimilitude. 
In the very nature of the case what is ugly can 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 95 

not be beautiful; but an imitation wins applause 
whether it be of an ill-looking or of a well- 
favored object. 

On the other hand, when the imitative art 
produces a good likeness of a repulsive object, 
it does not satisfy our idea of what constitutes 
fitness or verisimilitude. Artists sometimes 
paint unsuitable actions, as when Timomachus 
puts on canvas Medea slaying her children; 
Theon, Orestes murdering his mother; Par- 
rhasius feigning madness; or Chairephanes, un- 
chaste intercourse between men and women. 
In such cases it is especially important to accus- 
tom the young to understand that we do not 
commend the act of which the painting is an 
imitation or representation, but the skill that is 
displayed in accurately representing the subject. 

Since then poetry also frequently portrays 
base deeds and vile passions and characters 
mimetically, it is important for the young to 
keep in mind that what is admirable and worthy 
of approval in such things is not to be accepted 
as true or endorsed as good, but only to be com- 
mended as suitable and appropriate to the 
characters represented. The grunt of a hog, 
or the creak of a windlass, or the roar of a storm, 
or the noise of the sea disturbs us and affects 
us unpleasantly; but if any one imitates these 
things skillfully as Parmeno does the voice of 
a hog, or the windlass, it gives us pleasure. We 
avoid a man who is afflicted with a disease or 
a festering sore, as a disagreeable sight, but wq 



96 



Plutarch on Education 



look with a feeling of admiration upon the Phil- 
oktetes of Aristophon and the Jacosta of Sil- 
anion, so much do they resemble persons who 
are wasting away and dying. 

In like manner, the young man, when he reads 
what the buffoon Thersites, or the seducer Sisy- 
phus, or the brothel-keeper Batrachus is repre- 
sented as saying, must be taught to admire the 
art with which these things are imitated, but to 
reject and abhor the circumstances and de^ds 
that are imitated. To imitate what is excellent 
is not the same as an excellent imitation. What 
is fine is fitting and representative; what is vile 
corresponds and is appropriate only to what is 
vile. The lame Damonides hoped that the shoes 
he had lost might fit the feet of him who had 
stolen them: poor enough were they, but they 
answered the purpose of him who had lost them. 
And the following: "If ever wrong were right, 
for a throne's sake were wrong most right," 
and: "Strive to gain a reputation for upright- 
ness and thou mayest profit thereby to do the 
deeds of a scoundrel," and: "The marriage por- 
tion is a talent. Shall I take it? Can I live 
if I spurn this talent, or enjoy sleep if I reject it ? 
Shall I not pay in Hades the penalty for having 
committed sacrilege against this talent?" 

These are execrable and untruthful words; 
but they are characteristic of and appropriate 
to Eteocles and Ixion and an old usurer. If 
then we keep reminding the young that the 
poets write such things without commending 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 97 

or approving them and that they put into the 
mouths of reprehensible and execrable characters 
only execrable and reprehensible sentiments, 
they will suffer no harm from the sayings and 
sentiments of the poets. On the other hand, 
suspicion of a man's character is apt to be 
transferred both to his acts and his words on the 
assumption that bad words and bad deeds are 
wont to be done by bad men. A case in point is 
that of Paris running away from battle for the 
company of Helen. For since Homer does not 
mention any other person who acted in this way 
except this debauchee and adulterer, it is evi- 
dent that he wanted to visit with disgrace and 
to censure such incontinence. 

IV. 

In these matters we should observe carefully 
whether the poet himself gives any indications 
of disapproval in the sentiment he expresses. 
Menander has done so in the Prologue to his 
Thais. 

"Celebrate to me in song, O goddess, one who 
is saucy and pretty and has a nimble tongue; 
one who is wicked and wily and always wanting 
more; one who loves nobody yet professes to be 
always in love." In cases of this kind Homer 
has proceeded most judiciously, for he censures 
in advance vicious precepts and commends such 
as are worthy of approbation. He commends 
in these words : 



98 Plutarch on Education 

"So straightway he spake a sweet and cun- 
Homer. nm g word;" and in these: "He stood by his 

side and restrained him with gentle words." 

When he expresses his approbation in advance 
he almost always testifies and makes it plain 
that he neither accepts nor endorses the senti- 
ment. 

"Yet the thing pleased not the heart of Ag- 
amemnon the son of Atreus, but he roughly 
sent him away," that is, in a brutal and insolent 
and unbecoming manner. Into the mouth of 
Achilles he puts this vigorous language: "Thou 
heavy with wine, thou with the face of a dog 
and heart of a deer." He then adds his own 
verdict: "Then Peleus' son spake again with 
bitter words to Atreus' son and no wise ceased 
from anger." In the nature of the case what 
is said in anger and passion will not be fitly 
spoken. 

In like manner also in regard to actions: "He 
said, and devised foul entreatment of noble 
Hector, stretching him prone in the dust beside 
the bier of Menoitios' son." At proper times 
he also introduces words of censure, as it were, 
expressing thus his private condemnation of 
what is said or done, as for example, when he 
represents the gods as saying with respect to 
Quotations the adultery of Mars: "111 deed, ill speed. The 

from Homer. slow catcheth the swift." Or again with respect 
to the arrogance and vaporing of Hector: "So 
spake he boastfully, and Hera had indignation," 
or to the archery of Pandarus: "So spake Athena 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 99 

and persuaded his fool's heart." Such expres- 
sions of disapproval and such opinions any one 
may notice who gives careful heed. Moreover 
the poets enable us to draw lessons of instruc- 
tion from the acts themselves, as when Eu- 
ripides is reported to have said to those who re- 
viled Ixion as an impious and accursed person: 
"I did not bring him off the stage until I had 
nailed him to the torturing wheel," 

In Homer, silence is a mode of instruction in A stran ee 
that it leads us to profitable reflections in the misapprehen- 
case of those myths that are considered most s i<jn. 
objectionable.* These it was the custom of 
former times to explain by some recondite sig- 
nification, but now called allegories, a mode of 
procedure that did violence to the sense and 
perverted the meaning. Some say that Helios 
reveals the adultery of Aphrodite with Mars 
because the conjunction of the star of Aphrodite 
with Mars engenders persons inclined to adul- 
tery, but that when Helios rises and discloses 
their crime they are found out. The adornments 
of Hera for the sake of Zeus and the enchant- 
ments connected with the broidered girdle, some 
pretend to consider a sort of purification of the 
air which most nearly approximates to the na- 
ture of fire, as if the poet had not himself given 
the solution. In what he says about Aphrodite 
he teaches those who pay careful attention that 
corrupting music, immoral songs and conver- 



ge Appendix, Note C. 



100 Plutarch on Education 

sation which arouse lewd thoughts, debauch 
morals, make life effeminate and beget in men 
the love of luxury, distaste for labor and a fond- 
ness for petticoat government and "changes of 
raiment and warm baths and dalliance." 

For this reason also the poet represents 
Ulysses as saying to the player on the cithara: 
"Come now change thy strain and sing of the 
fashioning of the horse of wood." He thus 
clearly intimates that musicians and poets 
ought to take their themes from right-thinking 
and intelligent men. In what he says about 
Hera he shows that the companionship and 
favor of men that is secured by love-potions anc 
enchantments and wiles is not only ephemeral 
and speedily cloys and is short-lived, but that it 
even turns into enmity and anger when the de- 
sire for sensual gratification begins to wither 
away. This is what Zeus threatens when he 
says to Hera: "That thou mayest know, if it 
profit thee at all, the dalliance and the love 
when thou hadst come from among the gods, 
and didst beguile me." The recital and por- 
trayal of base actions profits and does not harm 
the hearer, if the representation also shows the 
disgrace and injury it brings upon the doers. 
The philosophers, you know, are wont to take 
their examples from such matter as they have 
at hand in order to use it for exhortation and 
instruction, but the poets construct them out 
of figments of their own imagination. 



Politi 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 101 

Melanthius once said, either in jest or in 
earnest, that the city of Athens was preserved a,,,!',',, 
by the rivalry and factions brought into exist- variai 
ence by the orators; for since they did not all 
crowd to the same side of the ship, the discord 
of those engaged in the management of the gov- 
ernment produced a sort of equilibrium among 
the destructive forces. 

In like manner the contradictions of the poets 
of themselves and among one another weaken 
their credibility and prevent the evil their works 
contain from having any marked preponderance 
or harmful effects. Where, then, the juxta- 
position of two passages makes their antagonism 
gvident, it is essential to take the side of the 
better. For example, compare the following: 
"Often, O child, do the gods foil mortals," with 
this: "Thou has taken the easiest course when 
thou blamest the gods." Or contrast this: "In 
abundance of gold thou oughtest to take delight 
but in these (persons) thou shouldnst not," with 
this: "Tis folly to be rich and yet know nothing;" 
or this, "Pray, what doth it profit thee to offer 
sacrifice who art about to die?" with the fol- 
lowing: "'Tis better, 'tis no hard duty to serve 
the gods." 

Such passages are easily explained, if, as has 
been suggested, we direct the judgment of the 
young toward the better sentiments they con- 
tain. If anything improper has been uttered 
(by the poet) that is not forthwith confuted it 
must be placed over against what has been said 



102 Plutarch on Education 

somewhere else in which an opposing view I 
been set forth. It is of no use to get angry of 
vexed at the poet, but we are simply to take 
what he says as conformable to his char;: 
and not as seriously intended. 

For example with re-- the II 

gods who were hurled out of heaven by i ne an- 
other and wounded by men, and their quai 
and brawls; "If thou wouldst, thou ha-' il in 
thee to devise other sayings I ellent than 

this," for in truth thou thinkest and S] 
more justly elsewhere words like tin- following: 
"The gods that everlivi nd: "Therein 

the blessed gods art- glad tor all their 
and: "This is the l"t other gods ha\ 
miserable men, that they should live in ] • 
themselves are sorrowli 

These are true and sound opinioi - the 

gods: those have been simply imagined for 
delectation of nun. Again when Buripi 
says: "By many shrewd d< 
who are our masters, foil us," it is not . 
call to mind: "Ii the gods <!" a wick< no 

gods are they," which truthfully 

by him. 

And when Pindar cries out in bitterness 
and exasperation: "It is ri^ht to injure an 
enemy in every possibl ind 

him that he says elsewhere: "Wh.r ined 

contrary to justice has no preeminei And 

when Sophocles says: "Gain is : a if 

gotten through falsehood," ind him 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 103 

that we heard him say: "Lying words bring no 
harvest." With these sayings concerning 
wealth: "The rich man can pass into trackless 
regions and from a long way off gain a foothold; 
but the poor man, fortunate though he be, can 
never attain his end. He can make an ill- 
shapen body and an ill-speaking tongue pass 
for wisdom and beauty," let us compare many 
others from Sophocles, as, for example: "May Sophocles, 
he attain to honor even though a poor man," 
and: "The beggar is none the worse, if his 
thoughts be wise." Again: "What is the advan- 
tage of many fine possessions if a perverse mind 
rears to maturity him who is fortunate and 
rich." 

Menander undoubtedly incites to the love of 
pleasure and arouses the feeling of self-conceit 
by those amative and glowing verses: "Every- 
thing that lives and looks upon the sun, the com- 
mon light for all of us, is at the beck of pleas- 
ure." But he turns again and draws us toward 
the right and cuts up by the roots the audacity 
of licentiousness when he says: "A vile life is 
disgraceful, even though it be agreeable." The 
latter is exactly the opposite of the former; it 
is better and more profitable. Such a juxta- 
position and disposition of contraries in poetry 
will therefore produce one of two results— it will 
lead to the better or it will take away all faith 
in the worse. 

If the poets do not themselves furnish an ex- 
planation of what they have said without justi- 



104 



Plutarch on Education 



Alexis. 



Socrates. 



Diogenes. 



fication,it is wise to place over against their sen- 
timents those of other famous men, to bear 
down the balance, as it were, in favor of the bet- 
ter. For instance, if Alexis should impress some 
one when he says: "It behooves the wise man 
to gather together whatever ministers to pleas- 
ure. There are three things, at least, that pos- 
sess the power to make life really worth living — 
to eat, to drink and to enjoy the delights of 
Aphrodite. We may well regard all else as sup- 
plementary," we should remind him that Soc- 
rates says just the opposite, namely that the fool- 
ish live in order to eat and drink, and the wise 
eat and drink in order to live. To him who said 
that against a villain deceit is not a forbidden 
weapon, thus encouraging us to put ourselves 
on a level with rogues, we must cite the words of 
Diogenes. Once when asked how one could 
best defend himself against a bad man he re- 
plied: "By becoming a good and honest man." 

It is also in place to use Diogenes against 
Sophocles. The latter wrote the following 
words about the mysteries and filled thousands 
of persons with despair: "Happy are those mor- 
tals who have beheld these things before passing 
into Hades; for to them alone is existence en- 
durable; to others the realm is full of gloom." 
Diogenes, on hearing a remark of this sort, 
asked: "Do you mean to say that the thief Pat- 
aikio will fare better after he is dead than 
Epaminondas, merely because he was initiated ?" 
When Timotheos, in a song he sang on the stage 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 105 

about Artemis, called her a "crazy, flaunting, 
jaunting, silly filly," Kinesias cried out at once: 
"Mayest thou have such a person for thy daugh- 
ter!" Apposite also is the remark of Bion to 
Theognis when he said: "Every man who is op- 
pressed with poverty is neither able to do any- 
thing or say anything, for his tongue is bound." 
To this the former rejoined: "Well then, since 
you are a poor man, how is it that you talk so 
much nonsense and bore us with it." 

V. 

It is also important not to neglect the oppor- 
tunities for improvement offered by the juxta- 
position of words and by the context. Though 
the cantharis is deadly, physicians nevertheless 
regard the feet and wings of this insect as rem- 
edial and relaxing; so in poetry, if a word or an 
epithet is calculated to make the temptation of 
the bad a little less difficult to resist, it must be 
taken up and further elucidated, as some per- 
sons do in a case like the following: 

"Lo, this is now the only due we pay to mis- 
erable men, to cut the hair and let the tear fall 
from the cheek," and: "This is the lot the gods 
have spun for wretched men, that they should Homer, 
live in pain." The poet does not say in so 
many words that a sorrowful life has been de- 
creed to all men by the gods, but only to fools 
and to persons who lack insight; these he is ac- 
customed to call wretched and pitiable because 



106 Plutarch on Education 

they deserve pity and commiseration on account 
of their evil deeds. 

VI. 

There is moreover another method of inter- 
preting questionable passages in the poets by 
turning them from the worse to the better, that 
is, by means of the customary use of language 
in which it is more important to drill the young 
than in the so-called glosses, or unusual mean- 
ings of words. True, it shows some critical 
knowledge of speech; nor is it altogether super- 
fluous to understand that 'rigedanos' (pl'yeBdvtk) 
means a 'miserable death, ' because the Mace- 
donians call death 'danos' and that the Aeolians 
call a victory which is gained by steadfastness 
and fortitude 'kammonie' (Kafifiovir)^) and that 
the Dryopes designate their divinities 'popoi, 
(ttottoi) . 

It is however necessary and useful, if we are 
to be profited and not harmed by poetry, to 
know how the poets employ the names of the 
gods as well as of the vices and virtues, to un- 
derstand what they mean by Fortune C^^XV) 
and what by Doom (Molpa) and whether these 
terms are used by them in one or many differ- 
ent senses; and more of the same sort. By 
'oikos' (oiko<s) the poets sometimes mean 'the 
dwelling house,' as for example: "to his high- 
roofed house;" sometimes 'property,' as, for 
example: "my house is being devoured." So 
'biotos' (fitoTos) sometimes means 'life' as in the 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 107 

passage: "But Poseidon of the dark locks made 
his shaft of no avail, grudging the life (of his 
enemy) to him;" sometimes 'possessions', as 
"others are eating up my life." The verb 
'alyein' (aXveiv) is sometimes used in the sense 
of 'to be grieved or perplexed,' as for instance; 
So spake he, and she departed in amaze and 
was sore troubled;" sometimes in the sense of 
'boast or be elated," as, for instance: "Art 
thou beside thyself with joy because thou hast 
beaten the beggar Iros?" 

In Euripides thoazein (6od£etv) means 'to 
move' as, "A monster moving from the sea of 
Atlas;" sometimes 'sit at rest' as in the passage: 
"Why press ye now to kneel before my gate, Sophocles 
with sacred branches in those suppliant hands?" 
(The exact sense of this extract is not clear, 
though of it general meaning there is no doubt.) 
It is also important to elucidate the meaning 
of words by the circumstances under which 
they are used, giving them one force here, 
another there, as the grammarians also teach us. 
For example: "Praise the little ship, but put the 
cargo on the large one." Here ainein (aiveiv) 
has exactly the meaning of epainein {eiratvehV) 
and the poet uses the latter word in the sense of 
paraiteisthai (TrapaiTeicrOai) to decline with 
thanks, "as when we say in ordinary intercourse 
that something is very fine and express our thanks 
when we do not want it and will not accept it. 
Furthermore, some think that Persephoneia 



108 



Plutarch on Education 



is called Epaine as being she for whom one re- 
turns thanks. 

Remembering then these different uses of 
words and this distinction between them in the 
more important and serious matters, let us 
begin with respect to the gods to teach the young 
that the poets sometimes use their names ac- 
cording to their own interpretation and some- 
times designating with the names of gods, cer- 
tain powers of which they are the donors and 

Archilochus chief possessors. Take, for example, the case 
of Archilochus who says in a prayer: "Hear me, 
O king Hephaistos, and be propitious to me thy 
suppliant; grant to me such things as thou art 
wont to grant!" Here he plainly calls upon 
the god himself. But when he bewails the fate 
of his sister's husband who perished at sea and 
did not receive the customary burial and affirms 
that he could bear the loss more calmly "if his 
head and shapely limbs enveloped in pure gar- 
ments Hephaistos had turned to ashes," he 
just as plainly means fire and not the god. 

Again, when Euripides says with an oath: 
"No, by Zeus among the stars and Ares delight- 
ing in slaughter," he speaks of the gods them- 
selves. But when Sophocles says: "Ares per- 
turbed in his senses and blind, like a swine, is 
rooting up all manner of ills," we see that Ares 

Homer. means war; just as Homer means bronze when 

he says: "Whose dusky blood keen Ares hath 
already spilt about fair-flowing Skamander." 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 109 

With respect to many expressions of this sort, 
it is important to know and to keep in mind 
that under the name of Zeus and Zen the poets 
sometimes mean the god, sometimes fate, and 
often even doom. When they say; "Father 
Zeus who rulest from Ida," and: "0 Zeus, who 
shall say that he is wiser than thou ?" they mean Interpre- 
the god. But when they name Zeus who is the atlon - 
cause of all that exists and takes place and say: 
"And hurled down into Hades many strong souls, 
and the counsel of Zeus wrought its accomplish- 
ment," they have in mind doom or destiny. 
For the poet does not believe that the god de- 
liberately planned that ills should fall upon men ; 
but he makes it perfectly plain that it lies in 
the very nature and necessity of things that 
cities and armies and commanders shall prosper 
and get the better of their enemies if they are 
upright in conduct; but that if, like the Greeks 
before Troy, they yield to passion and commit 
offenses and get into disputes and dissensions, m j sta k e 
the inevitable consequence is disorder and con- 
fusion and a disgraceful issue. 

"It is a decree of fate that men shall reap a 
harvest of ills from ill counsels." And Hesiod 
likewise, when he represents Prometheus as ut- Hesiod. 
tering a warning to Epimetheus and exhorting 
him "never to receive gifts from Zeus but to 
spurn them" employs the name of the god to 
signify the power of fate or fortune, since he 
designates the good things of fate as the gifts 
of Zeus. Among these are riches and marriages 



110 Plutarch on Education 

and public offices as well as all those other ma- 
terial objects the possession of which is un- 
profitable to those who do not know how to use 
them properly. Therefore since he regards 
Epimetheus a bad and foolish man he thinks 
it necessary to put him on his guard so that he 
may be wary of and distrustful of the gifts of 
fortune because he will be injured and even 
ruined by them. Again when he says: "Never 
be so rash as to twit a man with poverty, heart- 
crushing, life-destroying poverty, a dispensation 
of the ever living gods. " 

He accordingly says with respect to destiny 
that it is divinely sent and that it is not just to 
chide those who are poor through fate, that is, 
from no fault of their own, but that it is proper 
to censure that destitution which results from 
laziness, effeminacy and prodigality because it 
is in reality disgraceful and blamable. For 
when men did not yet know Destiny (or Tyche) 
by this name, but having observed its mighty 
power operating without control and without 
definable limits, and that human foresight was 
powerless against it, they designated it by names 
of the gods, just as we are also accustomed to 
designate acts and characters, yes, even dis- 
courses and men as divine and godlike. In this 
way many things that seem inappropriately said 
about Zeus are to be rectified, as for instance: 
"Two urns stand upon the floor of Zeus, one 
filled with evil gifts, and one with blessings." Or 
again: "Your oaths of truce, Kronos' son, en- 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 111 

throned on high, accomplished not; but evil is 
his intent and ordinance for both our hosts." 
Also: "For then the first wave of woe was rolling 
on Trojans and Danaans through the counsel 
of great Zeus." 

These passages refer to fate or doom and have 
regard to causes unfathomable by our reason or 
to causes which lie beyond our ken. But where 
it is appropriate and in accordance with reason 
and the fitness of things, there we should hold 
that the god is named in his own proper sense. 
So, for example in passages like the following: 
"Nay but he ranged among the ranks of other 
men (with spear and sword and with great 
stones) , but he avoided the battle of Ares the 
son of Telamon ; for Zeus would have been wroth 
with him, if he had fought with a better man than 
himself." And: "Zeus looks only after the 
most important affairs of mortals and gives 
over the lesser ones to other divinities." 

Very careful heed should also be given to 
other words that are applied to many things 
and in many ways by the poets. Take for 
instance the word 'worth' (apertj). Now since 
it not only means prudent, just and good in 
word and deed, but also, in the nature of the 
case, wins glory and power, the poets call honor 
and reputation worth. This is just like saying 
'olive' whether we mean the tree or the fruit 
thereof; or as if we spoke of the 'beech' whether 
we mean the tree itself or its fruit. When there- 
fore the poet says "Before excellence (^p^rrj) 



arete 



112 Plutarch on Education 

the gods have put sweat" and, "Even then the 
Meaning of Danaans, by their valor (aperr)) broke the 

battalions" and: "Since 'tis the destiny of mor- 
tals to die, death is honorable for those who 
have given their lives to virtue (^P eT v)," 'the 
young man should reflect that these words are 
spoken about virtue as being the preeminently 
divine quality and that by which we comprehend 
the supremest reason as well as the highest 
development of our logical faculties and the 
harmonious disposition of the soul. 

But when again he reads: "But for valor 
(aperr)) Zeus increaseth it in men or minisheth 
it" and: "Worth {aperr)) and honors attend upon 
riches" let him not sit down filled with envy of 
the rich, stupidly believing that they can buy 
worth for money just when they want so to do, 
nor think that it is in the power of fate to in- 
crease or diminish his stock of good sense, Let 
him rather understand that the poet uses worth 
(aperr}) in the sense of glory and power and 
good fortune or something of the sort. By 
kakotes (Katcorr)*;) the poets also sometimes des- 
ignate vice and baseness of soul, as, for example, 
when Hesiod says: "Baseness you may seize 
even in troops." But in Homer it may mean 
any other distress or misfortune, as for example; 
"For men quickly age in evil fortune (rca/corys) ." 
One would be mistaken if he were to suppose 
that the poet uses eudaimonia (evSatfiovia) m *h 2 
sense in which the philosophers use it. They 
employ it to designate the full enjoyment and 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 113 

possession of what is good, or a life in entire con- 
formity to nature; but they do not, as the poets 
often do, call the rich fortunate (eudaimon) 
or happy (makarios), and power or glory, fe- 
licity (eudaimon). Homer, however, correctly 
uses these words: "Thus, look you, I have no joy 
of my lordship among these my possessions." 
And Menander says: "I have much wealth and 
am called rich by all men but happy, by not 
one." Euripides causes much confusion and 
moral disorder when he writes: "May my lot 
never be the good fortune that is full of sorrow' ' 
and: "Why dost thou pay homage to absolute 
authority, which is fortunate injustice?" unless, 
as has been said, one notes carefully the meta- 
phorical and even perverted sense of the words. 
This is, however, sufficient on this point. 

VII. 

The young are also to be reminded, not once 
but many times, that poetry being a mimetic 
art employs ornament and brilliancy of diction 
when portraying deeds and characters; but it 
must never deviate from the semblance of truth ^he nature 
because the charm of imitation lies in its prob- of poetry. 
ability. Therefore imitation which does not 
wholly disregard verisimilitude is a commingling 
of the marks of virtue and vice. The poetry of 
Homer is thus a complete refutation of the doc- 
trine of the Stoics who aver that there is noth- 
ing bad in virtue and nothing good in vice ; that 
the ignorant man is altogether an offender in 



114 Plutarch on Education 

everything while on the other hand the rational 
man is always right, (or, that the ignorant are 
always in the wrong in everything and the en- 
lightened always and at all times in the right.) 
These doctrines we hear in the schools of the 
philosophers; but in practice and in the lives 
of ordinary mortals, the case stands as Euripides 
says: "Not wide apart are good and bad, but 
intermingled." 

Aside from truth, poetry also makes use of 
variety and change. Diversity in treatment 
introduces into myths the affecting, the strange 
and the unexpected; it produces both surprise 
and delight, while on the other hand a plain 
narrative neither arouses our emotions nor ad- 
mits anything fabulous. For this reason the 
poets do not always make the same persons vic- 
torious, nor fortunate nor upright. They do 
not even represent the gods as without passions 
or free from error when they take part in human 
affairs, to the end that the power of poetry to 
move and to excite surprise may never be quies- 
cent whenever it can be used without danger 
and without contradiction. 

VIII. 

In view of these facts we are to give the young 
to understand that they must not have such 
high opinions about those honorable and glo- 
rious names, as if they belonged to wise and just 
men, excellent kings and exemplars of every 
virtue and good quality. A youth will suffer 



How to Hear Lectures gn Poetry 115 

much harm if he approves and admires every- 
thing that is great, but is chagrined at nothing 
and does not close his ears and his mind to one 
that upbraids men who act and speak in the 
following manner: "For would, O father Zeus, Homer, 
and Athena, and Apollo, would that not one of 
all the Trojans might escape death, nor one of 
the Argives, but that we twain might avoid 
destruction, that we alone might undo the sacred 
coronel of Troy." Or: "And most pitiful of all 
that I heard was the voice of the daughter of 
Priam, of Cassandra, whom hard by me the 
crafty Clytemnestra slew." Or again: "Togo 
in to the concubine, that the old man might be 
hateful to her. I hearkened to her and did the 
deed." And: "Father Zeus, surely no other 
one of the gods is crueller than thou." Let the 
young man not accustom himself to condone 
anything of this kind; nor should he offer ex- 
cuses or invent specious pretexts for bad actions 
in order to appear smart and always equal to 
the occasion. Let him rather remember that 
poetry is the portrayal of the manners and the 
lives of men who are by no means perfect or 
pure or without blemish, but in whose minds, 
are passions and false opinions and ignorance 
yet whom good natural parts often draw toward 
the better. 

If a young man is thus forewarned and has 
acquired a proper attitude of mind, what is 
finely said and nobly done will stir him to emu- 
lation, and what it bad will have no attraction 



116 Plutarch on Education 

for him but will rather repel him. No matter 
what he hears, it will do him no harm. On 
the other hand, he who opposes him everything 
and permits his judgment to be carried away 
captive by admiration for the names of heroes 
will, like those who imitate Plato's stoop or 
Aristotle's lisp, before they are aware of it, find 
themselves on familiar terms with much that is 
corrupting. A young man must not be awe- 
stricken or do obeisance to everything, as if in 
a sanctuary, in a cowardly manner and under 
the influence of superstition; he must accustom 
himself to speak out courageously, nothing less 
than "right" or "just" or "not right" and "un- 
just." 

For instance, Achilles calls an assembly of 
Homer. the sick soldiers because he is greatly distressed 

by the weary war and especially solicitous for 
his honor and renown. Being skilled in the 
healing art and observing, on the ninth day, 
which is usually a critical period in diseases, 
that it was of an unusual character and had been 
produced by some unusual cause, he did not rise 
up and harangue the crowd but advised the 
king in private in the following words: "Son 
of Atreus, now deem I that we shall return wan- 
dering home again." 

Herein his conduct was right and modest and 
proper. But when the prophet said that he 
feared the anger of the mightiest of the Greeks, 
his (Achilles) behavior was no longer right and 
decorous, for he swore that no one of the Greeks 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 117 

should lay hands on him while he lived and 
adds, "not even Agamemnon himself," thus 
manifesting both contempt and disdain for the 
commander-in-chief. Thereupon, becoming still 
more incensed, he grasps his sword with intent 
to kill him, a purpose that was neither honorable 
nor expedient. But changing his mind, "Back 
into its sheath he thrust the great sword, and 
was not disobedient to the command of Athena." 
This was proper and wise; for although he was 
not able wholly to suppress his wrath, he at least 
restrained it before committing some irrepar- 
able deed, and brought it under the sway of 
reason. 

Again, Agamemnon makes himself ridiculous 
in what he says and does in the presence of the 
assembled host; but in his bearing with respect 
to Chryseis he is more diginfied and kingly. 
But when Briseis is led away "Achilles wept 
anon and sat him down apart from his com- 
rades." Albeit, the king himself placed on 
board the maiden and entrusted her to others 
to be transported away, although he had just 
before declared that she was superior to his 
wedded wife. His conduct was thus character- 
ized neither by infatuation nor baseness. Phoe- 
nix too when cursed by his father on account of 
the concubine declares: "Then I took counsel 
to slay him with the keen sword, but some im- 
mortal stayed mine anger, bringing to my mind 
the people's voice and all the reproaches of men, 



118 Plutarch on Education 

Public opin- lest I should be called a father-slayer amid the 

,on - Achaeans." 

It is true Aristarchus, out of fear, expunged 
these lines; yet they are quite in place here 
because Achilles wants to show Phoenix what 
anger is and what deeds men commit under the 
influence of passion, or when they will not listen 
to reason or to those who counsel moderation. 
Homer likewise represents Meleager when angry 
at the citizens but afterwards as appeased. 
Thus he justly censures the passions but also 
commends as honorable and advantageous the 
conduct of those who do not succumb to them, 
but oppose them and gain the mastery over 
them and give place to repentance. Here the 
distinction is quite plain; but where such is not 
the case it is incumbent upon those who ar» in- 
structing the young to proceed about in this 
wise. 

When Nausicaa beheld the stranger and felt 
attracted toward him, just as Calypso had been, 
but afterwards out of sheer wantonness and 
prompted by the desire for a husband she says 
these silly words to her maids: "Would that such 
an one might be called my husband, dwelling 
here, and that it might please him here to abide," 
her indiscreet tongue and lack of maidenly mod- 
esty are deserving of reproof. But when in a 
subsequent conversation with the man, she 
recognizes his character and admires his words 
so full of good sense and declares that she had 
rather marry such a man than a sea-farer or 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 119 

a dancer from among her own people, she de- 
serves commendation. 

Again, when Penelope chatted familiarly with 
the suitors and they, in order to gratify her, 
presented her with garments and other finery, 
Ulysses was delighted "because she drew from 
them the gifts and beguiled their souls." If 
now he finds pleasure in the gifts and in the aug- 
mentation of his property he is a worse pander 
than Poliagros, "Lucky Poliagros who keeps the 
celestial goats that bring him wealth." But if 
his satisfaction grows rather out of expectation 
of soon getting them into his power because 
they (the suitors) are hopeful and have no 
presentiment of coming events, his gladness 
and confidence are justifiable. 

Of like character is the numbering of the gifts 
which the Phaeakians collected and put aboard 
a vessel for him. If Ulysses, finding himself in 
such a solitude and being really in perplexity 
and uncertainty about his property, fears "lest 
the men be gone and have taken back their 
gifts upon the hollow ships," he deserves to be 
pitied, or in truth loathed on account of his 
avarice. But if, as some allege, he was honestly 
in doubt whether it was Ithaca where he had 
been put ashore, and regarded the safety of the 
gifts as evidence of the hospitality of the Phae- 
acians, his reasoning is just and his foresight 
deserves to be commended; for they would not 
have carried him to another country for nothing, 
put him ashore and abandoned him there with- 



120 Plutarch on Education 

out taking away his treasures. Some also blame 
Ulysses himself, if he really was put ashore 
when he was asleep, and cite a story current 
among the Tyrrhenians to the effect that he was 
a sleepy head and generally difficult to hold 
converse with. But if his sleep was feigned 
and he was merely ashamed to permit the 
Phaeakians to depart without gifts of hospitality 
and kindly wishes, nor able to elude his enemies 
when those were present, and employed the 
ruse of sleep to get himself out of his dilemma 
they acquit him of meannes. 

By pointing out such explanations to the young 
men, we check any tendency toward an evil 
life and arouse in them a striving for what is 
good since we distribute praise and blame to 
the different acts as they deserve. It is par- 
ticularly important to do this in tragedies 
because these often furnish plausible arguments 
but shifty excuses for inglorious and villanous 
deeds. The adage of Sophocles is verily true: 
"Fair words do not proceed from foul deeds." 
This poet is also in the habit of furnishing ex- 
tenuating circumstances and specious reasons 
for bad men and blameworthy conduct. Fur- 
Cave poetas. thermore, you see how his contemporary (Eu- 
ripides) has made Phaedra lay the blame of her 
love for Hippolytus on Theseus because of his 
licentiousness. A like impertinence he attrib- 
utes to Helen in the "Trojan Women" where he 
represents her as saying that Hecube was de- 
serving of punishment rather than herself be- 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 121 

cause she had borne an adulterer. A young 
man must be taught to consider such arguments 
as neither witty nor wise and to disapprove of 
such sophistical reasonings. He should feel 
even a stronger abhorrence for licentious words 
than for licentious conduct. 

IX. 

It is moreover always advantageous to seek 
for the reason of everything that is said. Cato, 
in his boyhood was in the habit of doing every- 
thing that his personal attendant enjoined upon 
him, but he always wanted to know the reason 
for the injunction. Besides, poets must not be 
implicitly trusted like teachers or lawgivers 
unless the subject-matter is its own justification. 
This it will be if it is good ; if bad, its falsity and 
vapidity will be evident. Many anxiously in- 
quire what such a passage means and how it 
is to be understood, namely: "Do not lay the 
cup over the mixing bowl of those who are 
drinking," and: "Whencesoever a warrior from 
the place of his own car can come at a chariot 
of the foe, let him thrust forth with his spear." 
But they accept other passages without ques- 
tion, as for example this one: "For this cows 
man how stout of heart soe'er, to know a father's 
or a mother's sin;" and this one: "A lowly 
mind the unfortunate befits." 

Such sayings influence our character and dis- 
turb our peace of mind inasmuch as they implant 
in us false judgments, if we do not accustom 



122 Plutarch on Education 

ourselves in every case to propose this question — 
"Why should they not rather present a cour- 
ageous front to fate, and, undismayed, proudly 
hold up their heads? If my father is a person 
of little consequence and slender wit but I my- 
self am upright and judicious, why should I 
not rather be proud of my worth than cast down 
and disheartened on account of my father's de- 
fects?" He who presents a bold front and takes 
a firm stand and does not allow himself to be 
driven out of his course by every derogatory re- 
mark as by a wind; he who firmly believes in the 
truth of the proverb, "A dolt is dismayed by 
every saying," will render harmless much that is 
said in disparagement of him. It is by such 
methods that the hearing of lectures on poetry 
is to be rendered innocuous. 

X. 

Often the fruit on the vines is concealed and 
remains unobserved because of the overshadow- 
ing leaves and luxuriant branches; in poetic 
diction much useful and profitable instruction 
escapes the notice of the young learner because 
it is hidden amid a profusion of mythological 
tales. This must not be permitted, nor must 
the chief aim be lost sight of, which is to implant 
those precepts which are most conducive to 
virtue and best fitted to mold character. It 
will not be amiss to deal briefly with this part 
of my subject, sketching my views only in out- 
line and leaving a fuller treatment together 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 123 

with citations of examples to those who write 
more to display their erudition (than I) . 

In the first place, the young student should 
learn to distinguish good from bad characters 
and persons by their words and also note what 
deeds the poet appropriately assigns to each. 
Thus, for example, Achilles says to Agamemnon, 
in anger, it is true: "Never win I meed like thine 
when the Achaeans sack any populous city of Homer. 
Trojan men." And Thersites, reviling him ex- 
claims: "Surely thy huts are full of bronze, and 
many women are in thy huts, the chosen spoils 
that we Acheans give thee first of all whene'er 
we take a town." And again Achilles: "When 
Zeus shall give us the strong-walled city of Troy 
for a prey." Then Thersites: "Whom I per- 
chance or some other Achaian have led captive." 
Again, when Agamemnon, making the round 
of the host, upbraids Diomedes, the latter makes 
no reply, "having respect to the chiding of the 
king revered;" but Sthenelos of whom no men- 
tion is made (because of his insignificance) says : 
"Atreides, utter not falsehood, seeing thou 
knowest to speak truly. We avow ourselves 
to be better men by far than our fathers were." 

If this distinction is not overlooked it will 
teach the young learner to regard freedom from 
arrogance and modest behavior as characteristics 
of a gentleman and to be on his guard against 
boasting and talking about himself as disagree- 
able habits. 



124 Plutarch on Education 

It is also profitable in this connection to ob- 
serve the behavior of Agamemnon, — he passes 
by Sthenelos without notice but he does not 
treat Ulysses in the same way; to him he makes 
answer and saith: "When he saw how wroth he 
was, and took back his saying." To make 
apologies to every person is the mark of a servile 
and undignified disposition; to esteem everybody 
lightly exhibits an unwarranted assumption of 
authority and lack of sense. When Diomedes 
is chided by the king whose displeasure he had 
incurred he very judiciously keeps silent during 
the battle ; but after it is over he speaks boldly : 
"My valor didst thou blame in chief amid the 
Danaans." 

It is important not to overlook the difference 
in conduct between a man of good sense and a 
soothsayer who is seeking to gain popular favor. 
Calchas does not wait for a suitable occasion 
to speak, but at once proceeds to traduce the 
king for having brought the pestilence on them. 
But Nestor, wishing to interfere in order to 
A time- bring about a reconciliation, and being solicit- 

server. ous lest he might seem to the host to be censur- 

ing Agamemnon for making a serious mistake 
as well as for speaking in anger, gives directions 
to "spread a feast for the councillors; that is 
thy place and seemly for thee. In the gather- 
ing of many shalt thou listen to him that de- 
viseth the most excellent counsel." After the 
feast he sends forth the mediators: this was an 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 125 

effort to rectify a mistake — what Calchas did 
was an accusation and an indignity. 

Moreover, it is also important to note the 
difference between peoples as it appears in the 
following circumstances. For example, the Tro- 
jans advance with a shout and full of self-con- 
fidence; the Greeks "in silence feared their cap- 
tains." It is a mark of courage and at the same 
time of obedience, to fear the captains in the 
presence of the enemy. Hence Plato would ac- 
custom us to dread adverse criticism and dis- 
grace more than toil or dangers. Cato also was Cato. 
wont to say that he liked better those who blush 
than those who become pale. There is also an 
individuality in the promises made. Speaking 
for himself Dolon declares: "For I will go straight 
to the camp, until I may come to the ship of 
Agamemnon." But Diomedes promises noth- 
ing; he simply remarks that he would be less 
fearful if accompanied by another. Prudence 
is characteristically Greek and commendable; 
rashness is a barbarian trait and blameworthy. 
The former is to be imitated; the latter, avoided. 

It is not unprofitable to contemplate the feel- 
ings of the Trojans and of Hector who was about 
to fight a duel with Ajax. Once during the 
Isthmian games when one of the combatants 
received a blow in his face and a great outcry Aeschylus, 
was raised Aeschylus remarked: "Behold, what 
practice can do. The spectators cry out while 
the man who has been hit is silent." When the 
poet relates that the Greeks were delighted as 



126 Plutarch on Education 

they saw Ajax resplendent in arms, "But a 
sore trembling came upon the Trojans, on the 
limbs of every man, and Hector's own heart 
beat within his breast," who is not surprised 
at the difference? His heart alone leaps for 
joy who is about to risk his life; he acts as if he 
were shortly to engage in a wrestling match; 
but the spectators tremble and shudder in every 
limb because of their fear and solicitude for the 
king. Here one may observe the difference 
between the worst and the best. For of Ther- 
sites Homer says: "Hateful was he to Achilles 
above all and to Ulysses." But Ajax who was 
always a friend of Achilles says to Hector with 
respect to him: "Now verily shalt thou know 
man to man, what manner of princes the Dan- 
aans likewise have among them, even after 
Achilles, the cleaver of the ranks of men, the 
lion-hearted." This is high praise for Achilles; 
but what follows is also judiciously expressed: 
"Yet we are such as to face thee, yea and many 
of us." Here Ajax does not name himself 
alone nor as the bravest but only as equally 
able, with many others, to hold his own. 

This is sufficient regarding points of difference, 
unless we wish to add the further facts that, 
of the Trojans, many are taken alive, of the 
Achaeans not one; that, of the former, some fall 
on their knees before their enemies, such as 
Adrastos, the son of Antimachus, Lykaion, and 
even Hector himself when entreating for his 
sepulture; but of the former not one. It is also 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 127 

to be noted that it is the characteristic of a 
barbarian to fall down and beg for mercy in a 
combat, but of a Greek to conquer or to die 
fighting. 

XI. 

In the pasture fields the bee seeks the flowers; 
the goat, the young twigs and the swine the 
roots; other animals again, the seed and the 
fruits: in like manner in the reading of poetry, 
one plucks the flowers of history ; another lingers 
over the beaut)'" of diction and the artistic ar- 
rangement of words, as Aristophanes says about 
Euripides: "I employ his terse manner of ex- 
pression." Others again seize upon the pas- Diverse 
sages which they regard as suitable to form the as e6 ' 
character. 

We wish to remind those for whom this treat- 
ise is written that it is strange if the lover of 
myths does not notice the stories that are re- 
lated in a new and extravagant style, or if the 
philologist fails to observe a narrative that is 
succinctly put and composed with a due regard 
to the rhetorical effect. Equally strange is it 
if the admirer of what is honorable and noble 
reads poetry for the sake of the entertainment 
and not for instruction (TratSeia), or if he passes 
lightly and carelessly over those passages that 
eulogize courage and self-control and righteous- 
ness, as for example this: "Tydeus' son, what 
ails us that we forget our impetuous valor? 
Nay, come hither, friend, and take thy stand by 



128 Plutarch on Education 

me, for verily it will be a shame if Hector of the 
glancing helm take the ships." To behold a 
man of the highest prudence who is in danger, 
along with all others, of being slain and utterly- 
undone, fearing shame and disgrace but not 
death — such a spectacle, I say, can not but 
incite a young man to virtuous deeds. 

And the verse: "Athena rejoiced in the wis- 
dom and judgment of the man" suggests the 
thought that the goddess takes pleasure, not in 
riches nor in personal beauty nor in strength but 
in a man who is judicious and just. Again, 
when she says she will not fail nor desert Ulysses 
because "thou art so wary, so ready of wit and 
prudent," she makes it plain that of all our 
qualities, virtue {aperrj) is the only one that 
can be regarded as pleasing to the gods and di- 
vine, since it lies in the very nature of the case 
that like should be in accord with like. Now 
as the ability to control one's anger is not only 
considered to be very great matter but really is, 
yet vigilance and foresight against falling into 
anger and being carried away by it is still 
greater. 

It is important therefore to point out to read- 
ers, not hastily and in a cursory manner, that 
Achilles who was a man neither able to restrain 
himself nor of a mild disposition, orders Priam 
to keep quiet and not to exasperate him, in the 
following language: "No longer chafe me, old 
sire; of myself I am minded to give back Hector 
to thee, for there came to me a messenger from 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 129 

Zeus — lest I leave thee in peace, old sire, within 
my hut, albeit thou art my suppliant, and lest I 
transgress the commandment of Zeus." Hav- 
ing himself washed and clothed the body of 
Hector he places him upon the wain, even be- 
fore his father had seen the mutilated corpse, 
"lest he could not refrain the wrath at his sor- 
rowing heart when he should look upon his son 
and lest Achilles' heart should be vexed thereat 
and he slay him and transgress the command- 
ment of Zeus." When a man who is prone to 
fall into a paiion; who is by nature rough and 
irascible, is not unaware of his infirmity but 
keeps guard over himself and tries to fortify 
himself against occasions when he might lose 
his temper — when such a man further tries in 
advance to put himself in the power of his reg- 
ulative faculty to the end that he may not fall 
into a passion unwittingly, he displays surprising 
foresight. It is thus that he should do in respect 
to drunkenness who is over fond of wine, or who 
is unduly amorous with respect to love. 

For this reason Agesilaus would not permit 
any manifestation of affection from another 
and Cyrus would not even look at Pantheia. 
On the other hand the ill-bred pursue the op- 
posite course. They collect fuel to feed the fire 
of passion and yield themselves up entirely to 
their evil and lewd impulses. Ulysses not only 
restrains his own anger, but when he observes 
frcm his words that Telemachus is wroth and in- 
dignant (at the suitors) he endeavors to hold 



130 Plutarch on Education 

him back. He likewise exhorts his son in ad- 
vance to be calm and to endure their insolence, 
with these soothing words: "And if they shall 
evil entreat me in the house, let thy heart 
harden itself to endure while I am shamefully 
handled, yea even if they drag me by the feet 
through the house to the doors, or cast at me 
and smite me: still do thou bear the sight." 
For just as men do not curb the horses during a 
race but before the race, so it is a weighty matter 
to restrain those who are inclined to be violent 
and who are naturally choleric, by fortifying 
them in advance with grounds of reason and 
by getting them under control, then only to 
lead them to the contest (or trial). It is im- 
portant even to pay careful attention to names 
but nevertheless to avoid the whimsicalities of 
Cleanthes, for he is merely jesting when he 
pretends to elucidate "Father Zeus that rulest 
from Ida" and, "King Zeus, Dodonaean," 
where he contracts the two last syllables into 
one,, for the reason, as he affirms, that anadodo- 
naean signifies the air that rises from the earth 
by exhalation. (The Greek is avdSova whence 
avahahcovaiov) . 

Chrysippus too is often trivial; not because he 
jests but because of his strained etymologies. 
For example, he makes the far-thundering (or 
loud-voiced Zeus) represent one who is an elo- 
quent speaker and who carries everything before 
him by the force of his argument. It is better 
to leave such things to the philologist and to 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 131 

hold to what is both useful and credible. "More- 
over my soul forbiddeth me, since I have ever 
learnt to be valiant," and: "For unto all would 
he be gentle." 

Here the poet shows that courage is some- 
thing which may be acquired or learned; and 
further that he regards agreeable and kindly in- 
tercourse with men to be the result of rational 
and well-considered education. He thus ex- 
horts us not to be neglectful of ourselves but to . su ts ( 
learn what is honorable and to give heed to our 
teachers for the reason that stupidity and cow- 
ardice are nothing but ignorance and lack of 
education. 

Altogether in accordance with this position 
is what Homer says about Zeus and Poseidon: 
"Verily both were of the same lineage and the 
same place of birth, but Zeus was the older and 
wiser." Herein he affirms that wisdom is the 
divinest and most kingly attribute, since he as- 
signs to Zeus the highest preeminence for he 
believes that all other virtues attend upon wis- 
dom. 

We should accustom the young to hear at- 
tentively such passages as: "He will not lie to 
thee for he is wise," and: "Antilochus, thou once 
wert wise, what thing is this thou hast done? 
Thou hast shamed my skill and made my horses 
fail," and: "Glaukos, wherefore hath such an L y i ng j s 
one as thou spoken over measure? Out on it, base. 
I verily thought that thou in wisdom wert 
above all others." This shows that wise men 



132 



Plutarch on Education 



Homer. 



Wisdom the 

principal 

thing. 



will not lie, nor suffer deception to be used in 
contests, nor deride others unjustly. 

When Homer tells us that Pandarus in his 
folly allowed himself to be persuaded to break 
the oath, he makes it plain that he thinks a 
wise man would not have done so. If we rightly 
interpret the following passage we shall discover 
that the poet suggests a similar lesson with re- 
gard to continence. "Now, Proitus' wife, goodly 
Anteia, lusted after him, to have converse in 
secret love, but no whit prevailed she, for the 
uprightness of his heart, on wise Bellerophon," 
and: "Verily, at the first she would none of the 
foul deed, the fair Clytemnestra, for she had a 
good understanding." In these verses he shows 
that wisdom is the cause of continence, while in 
those which challenge to battle he always says: 
"Shame, ye Lykians, whither do ye flee? Now 
be ye strong," and: "But let each man conceive 
shame in his heart, and indignation, for verily, 
great is the strife that hath arisen." 

The poet evidently represents the wise as 
courageous for the reason that because they 
dread disgrace they have the strength to control 
their passions and to undergo dangers. For 
this reason also Timotheus fittingly exhorts the 
Greeks in his drama, the Persians, to "Cherish 
the sense of shame for it is a valliant companion 
in war." Aeschylus also regards it as the effect 
of wisdom if men do not become arrogaat or 



*See Appendix, Note D. 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 133 

overweening or puffed up by the praises of 
others, for he writes: "He does not desire to be 
regarded as the most just man, but to be so, 
harvesting the deep furrows of his breast from 
which sprout up wise counsels." It is char- 
acteristic of a man of high and noble aims to 
be proud of himself and of his probity. Since 
all things are tributary to wisdom, it is evident 
that every virtue is the product of reason and 
instruction (A.0709 kclL SiSaa/cdXia) . 

XII. 

The bee by virtue of its nature extracts the 
sweetest and finest honey from the bitterest 
flowers and the roughest thorns; in like manner 
boys who are properly directed in their reading 
of poetry will learn in some way or other to 
draw some useful and profitable lessons even 
from passages of questionable or it may be low 
morality. Thus, Agamemnon at once arouses 
our suspicions that he has been bribed when he 
excuses from military service the rich man who 
made him a present of the mare Aithe. "Her 
unto Agamemnon did Anchises' son give in fee, 
that he might escape from following him to n nes 
windy Ilios and take his pleasure at home; for 
great wealth had Zeus given him." 

Yet he acted wisely, as Aristotle remarks, in 
preferring a good steed to such a man; for really 
of less value than a dog or an ass is a cowardly 



Read be- 
tween the 



"See Appendix, Note A, ind. 



134 Plutarch on Education 

and effeminate man, one who has been enervated 
by riches and high living. Again, it seems shame- 
ful that Thetis should incite her son to pleasures 
and the gratification of sensual desires. But 
here also one may observe the self-control of 
Achilles. Though he loved Briseis who had 
come back to him, and although he knew that 
the end of his life was near, he did not hasten 
to the enjoyment of carnal pleasures; nor did 
he, as most persons would have done, mourn 
for his friend, in a state of inactivity, and to the 
neglect of his duties. Because of his grief he 
abstains from pleasures but is strenous in labors 
and in military enterprises. Conversely, Ar- 
chilochus gets no credit when mourning for his 
brother-in-law who had perished at sea since 
he deliberately contends against sorrow with 
wine and merriment. Yet he shows that he 
understands the situation when he says: "I 
shall not make anything better or worse with 
my tears, nor by giving myself up to pleasure 
and feasting." 

Now if he thought he could make matters 
neither better nor worse by indulging in sensual 
pleasures, how shall we make the present worse 
by studying philosophy and engaging in poli- 
tics or going into the agora or attending lectures 
in the Academy and following agricultural pur- 
suits ? Whence it results that those marginal 
corrections made by Cleanthes and Antisthenes 
are not out of place. When the latter observed 
the Athenians making a great outcry in the 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 135 

theater over the words: "Is anything base which 
not every one so regards?" he forthwith changed 
the verse into "What is base is base whether it 
is so regarded or not." (The play upon words 
in Greek can not well be rendered in English.) 
And the passage about wealth: "To give to 
friends and to restore with careful attention the 
sick body," Cleanthes changed thus: "To give 
to lewd women and to ruin our diseased bodies 
with riotous living." 

The passage in Sophocles: "He who is on 
friendly terms with a tyrant is his slave even 
though he be a free man", Zeno changed to, "No 
slave is he who as a free man comes," by which 
he means free from fear and from pride and un- 
daunted. (The former of the two verses may 
also be rendered: "He who doth enter at a ty- 
rant's door becomes his slave, e'en though he 
comes as a free man"). What hinders our en- 
couraging the young to strive after higher ideals 
by changing verses like the following: "The thing 
most to be desired by man is that sorrow's dart 
shall strike where he wishes," into, "that sor- 
row's dart shall fall where it will make him bet- 
ter." To desire and to obtain that which profits 
us not is unfortunate and deplorable. 

And instead of the lines: "Not to be always 
fortunate did Atreus beget thee, O Agamemnon. 
It is thy lot to mourn no less than to rejoice," 
we should say: "It behooveth thee to rejoice, 
not to grieve, if that befalls thee which is best 
for thee," since: "Not that thou shouldst be 



136 Plutarch on Education 

always fortunate did Atreus beget thee, O Ag- 
amemnon." "This is also a god-sent ill upon 
men, when one seeth the right and doeth it 
not." When one knows the better and allows 
himself to be drawn toward the worse through 
feebleness of will and effeminacy — this is the 
mark of a coarse and unreasonable and pitiable 
disposition. 
it , "It is the speaker's heart that moves us, not 

amend po- ms words (logos) ;" or rather heart and reason 

etry. (logos), or the heart through the reason. For 

as the horse is guided by means of the bridle 
and the ship by means of the rudder, so there 
are no instrumentalities so essentially human 
and fitting for the promotion of virtue as the 
reason. 

The passage: "Is he most attracted by a 
woman or by a man? Whatever is beautiful 
has equal charms for him," had better be changed 
to, "Whoever is wise attracts him equally," 
since in such a case it is really a matter of in- 
difference. But he who is dragged hither and 
thither by lust and personal charms is silly and 
inconstant. "Fear is the religion of the wise" 
is verily not true, but "Courage is the religion 
of the wise." Fear belongs to the stupid and 
to the foolish and to the ungrateful because 
they misapprehend and have a dread of the 
cause of all things as being harmful though it is 
really the potency and the beginning of good. 
It is in this way that poetical selections may be 
amended and improved. 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 137 

XIII. 

The farther application of what has just been 
said Chrysippus clearly indicates when he af- 
firms that it is necessary to deduce and transfer 
what is useful in any poetical passage to things 
of a like nature. When Hesiod says: "Your 
ox would not die if your neighbor were not a 
bad man," we might make a like assertion about 
a dog or an ass or about any animal that might 
die. In like manner when Euripides says: 
"Can he be called a slave who fears not death?" 
we are to understand that he means the same 
with regard to toil and disease. 

When physicians have ascertained the efficacy 
of a medicine for one disease they transfer it 
and use it for any other of a similar nature; so 
in like manner it is essential to take a remark 
of a general character but of which the applica- 
tion is suitable to a wide range of particulars 
and not apply it to a single instance but to ex- 
tend it to all similar instances, no less than to 
accustom the young to observe its extended 
application and to make it readily. 

In this way they will come upon many ex- 
amples well suited to exercise them in the usage 
(peXenf) and practice (acr/crjcri'i) of comprehending 
quickly. For example, when Menander says: 
"Happy is he who has money and good sense," 
they may take it for granted that the same re- 
mark might be applied to fame or leadership 
or eloquence. From this point of view the as- 



138 Plutarch on Education 

tonishment Ulysses expresses at Achilles when 
sitting among the maidens in Skyros, "Dost 
thou spin wool, thou who art sprung from a race 
the most illustrious, and dost thou blot out the 
glory of thine ancestry?" may be applied to a 
profligate or to a miser, to one who is heedless 
or uneducated, in this wise: "Thou drinkest, son 
of the most illustrious father among the Greeks." 
Or we may put it: "Dost thou gamble, or strike 
quails, or huckster, or deal in usury, having no 
high aims and conducting thyself in a manner 
that is unworthy of thee?" 

"Speak not to me of wealth: I do not envy 
what the basest even may acquire." We may 
say the same of glory or physical beauty, or 
of military honors or the priestly crown — any 
or all of which possessions we see in the hands 
of the very vilest. "Of ignoble birth are the 
children of cowardice." For cowardice we may 
put here debauchery or superstition or envy 
or any other vice. 

Homer finely says : "I'll Paris, most fair in sem- 
blance," and: "Hector, in semblance bravest." 
Here the poet makes it clear that he deserves 
reproach and contempt who regards beauty as 
the highest good. Such remarks are to be ap- 
plied to things of a similar character in order 
to keep young men from placing a high value 
on matters of small importance as well as to 
lead them to consider it a reproach to be ad- 
dressed with "foremost in wealth", or "fore- 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 139 

most in banquets," or "in slaves, or in cattle," 
or even in speaking. 

We should seek preeminence in what is hon- 
orable and endeavor to be first in matters of 
first importance, and great in what is really 
great. For the glory that comes from trifling 
and unimportant things is no glory and is not 
worth striving for. This example at once 
teaches us to note carefully praise and blame in 
the Homeric poems. They make it perfectly 
clear that they regard bodily or merely acciden- 
tal advantages as of little value. 

In the first place in saluting and addressing 
one another they (the speakers) do not use 
such terms as handsome or strong, but "Heaven- 
sprung son of Laertes, Ulysses of many devices," 
and : "Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in coun- 
cil," and: "Achilles, Peleus' son, mightiest of 
Achaians far," and: "Noble son of Menoitios, 
dear to my heart." 

On the other hand they do not reproach one 
another with bodily defects, but their animad- 
versions are directed solely against offences, as 
for example: "Thou heavy with wine, thou 
with the face of a dog and the heart of a deer," 
and: "Aias, master of railing, ill-counselled," Interpreta- 
and: "Idomeneus, why pratest thou untimely? tlons in the 

It beseemeth thee not to be a prater;" "Aias, , , 

r ' good morals, 

thou blundering boaster." 

Finally Thersites is not twitted by Achilles 

for being lame or bald or humpbacked, but for 

being a silly babbler. And the mother of 



140 Plutarch on Education 

Hephaistos applies to him in a kindly way an 
epithet referring to his lameness, thus: "Rise 
up, lame god, oh my son." In this way Homer 
ridicules those who are ashamed of their lame- 
ness or blindness since he does not regard as dis- 
graceful what is in itself not disgraceful nor our 
fault but that of our lot. 

In two ways the careful reading of poetry is 
profitable: it teaches moderation and restrains 
us from harshly and foolishly reproaching any 
one for his condition in life; it teaches magna- 
nimity by keeping even those who have been un- 
fortunate from being downcast and disheartened, 
no less than it teaches them to bear meekly 
scoffing and ridicule and scorn. 

Here the verses of Philemon are appropriate : 
"Nothing is more noble and more characteristic 
of the man of culture than to be able to endure 
calumny." If any one deserves censure, let 
it be directed against his offences and passions, 
as Adrastus does in the tragedy when Alkmaeon 
says to him: "Thou art the brother of one who 
has slain her husband." His reply is: "With 
thine own hand didst thou slay her who bore 
thee!" As those who beat garments do not 
touch the body, so those who reproach people 
with their misfortunes or their humble birth, 
inflict blows only on what is external, besides 
doing what is both useless and foolish. They 
do not touch the soul nor that part of us which 
really needs correction and reproof. 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 141 

XIV. 

We have above cited the objections and opin- 
ions of distinguished philosophers and statesmen 
to bad and harmful poems in order to prevent 
or deter the young from putting any faith in 
them. It is now necessary to point out and con- 
firm by proofs and testimonies from the philos- 
ophers whatever we find in them that is agree- 
able and profitable though we leave the credit 
of inventing these things to the poets. It is just 
and advantageous, since thereby credence gains 
in weight and dignity, when those sayings that 
are uttered on the stage or chanted to the lyre 
or learned by heart in the schools, harmonize 
with the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, 
or when the admonitions of Chilo and Bias con- 
vey the same sentiments that are contained in 
the books read by the young. 

For this reason we should point out to them, 
not merely in a cursory manner that "Not for 
thee, my child, are deeds of arms; but follow thou 
after the loving tasks of wedlock," and: "Zeus 
is wroth with thee when thou tightest with a 
better man," differ not a whit from "Know Philosophy 
thyself," but convey the same lesson. So too: and poetry 
"Fools, they do not know how much better the must har " 
half is than the whole;" and: "111 counsel is 
worst for him who gives it," agree with the doc- 
trines expounded by Plato in the Gorgias and 
in the Republic when he says that it is "worse 
to do wrong than to suffer wrong," and that 



142 Plutarch on Education 

"it is more harmful to commit an evil deed than 
to suffer an evil deed." We should also add 
the verse from Aeschylus: "Take courage, the 
paroxysm of pain lasts not long;" which is but 
the oft-quoted and admired dictum of Epicurus 
to the same effect that "severe pains pass 
quickly and long-continued ones are not severe." 
One quotation is in the exact words of Aeschylus; 
the other is closely akin in sentiment. For a 
great and violent pain does not last long; that 
which continues long is not great or hard to 
endure. 

The following words of Thespis: "Thou seest 
But see II. ^at herein is Zeus the greatest of the gods : 

. ' he neither practices deceit, nor boasts, nor 

ginning. r ' 

laughs foolishly, nor does he know the allure- 
ments of pleasure," hardly differ from those of 
Plato when he avers that "the divinity dwells 
equally remote from pleasure and pain." "We 
may affirm that the luster of virtue is secure, 
but riches are often the portion of the base," 
declares Bakchylides*; and almost in the same 
words Euripides says, "I do not regard anything 
as more worthy of reverence than wisdom since 
it ever abides with the good," and: "Honors ye 
have gained; now ye think to acquire worth 
with wealth, yet ye are hapless men among the 
upright in heart." 

Is not this proof of what the philosophers say 
concerning riches ? For they affirm that wealth 



•"See Appendix, Note D. 



How to Hear Lectures on Poetry 143 

apart from worth is useless and harmful to those 
who possess it. When we bring together and 
reconcile poetry with the precepts of philosophy 
we divest the former of its mythical element 
and of its mask and lend impressiveness to what 
is said with a salutary purpose in view. More- 
over, it also opens and prepares the mind of the 
young for the teachings of philosophy. They 
will likewise acquire some taste for and have 
some, acquaintance with them and will not ac- 
cept without examination those sayings which 
they have heard so often from mothers and 
nurses and even from fathers and from personal 
attendants. These are wont to felicitate and 
pay court to the rich, to shudder at death and 
labor, and to regard virtue with indifference or 
of no consequence, without riches and glory. 

When they hear the precepts of philosophy, 
so diametrically opposed to these things, they 
are at first seized with dismay, confusion and 
astonishment, since they are not able to get them 
into their minds and to comprehend them, 
unless we accustom them to bear and not to 
flee the brilliant light of truth by means of the 
feebler rays of fable, just as persons coming 
from thick darkness are enabled to endure 
the splendor of the sun without discomfort 
by passing through a milder light. If they have 
already heard beforehand or read in poems: 
"To bewail the newly born because of the sor- 
row that awaits them, but to deem happy and 
felicitate those who have died and are released 



144 Plutarch on Education 

from their labors," and: "What more do mortals 
need except these two — Demeter's grain and 
water from the brook?" and: "0 absolute 
power, beloved of barbarians:" and: "The hap- 
piness of mortals consists in grieving as little as 
possible," they will be less perturbed and cast 
down when they hear from the philosophers 
that "death is no concern of mine," and "the 
wealth of nature is limited," and "happiness 
consists not in the abundance of money nor in 
the bulk of property nor in honors nor in power 
but in freedom from sorrow, in keeping the pas- 
sions under control and a frame of mind conform- 
able to nature." For this reason and for all 
those that have already been enumerated, the 
young need a judicious pilot in their reading of 
poetry, to the end that they may not be prej- 
udiced against the study of philosophy, but 
rather that they may be prepared for it by po- 
etry as by a well-beloved and familiar friend. 



THE RIGHT WAY TO HEAR 

"Hellenic civilization had formed a system of public 
education in an unsurpassed and almost unequalled 
way. The weakness of the Roman State was that it 
neglected education. The Jews developed a system 
of home education, in which certain religious and fam- 
ily and national influences were impressed on the child 
in a marvellous fashion, so that they permanently 
moulded his character. * * * But Hellenism 
evolved a national and public education, intellectual 
and physical, of remarkable character; and it was in 
later times and in the Graeco-Asiastic cities that this 
system can be observed in greatest perfection. There 
can be no doubt that the vitality of those cities de- 
pended on their careful attention to public education. 
The character^and details of the system belong still to 
the domain of the archaeologist, for they are only being 
slowly recovered from the ruins of Graeco-Asiatic 
cities. The general principle is clear and certain. — 
Ramsay, The Cities of St. Paul. 

The lecture which I lately delivered on the 
Art of Hearing, Nicander. I have written out 
and sent to you in order that you may know 
how to hear with advantage those who exhort 
you after you have been discharged from the 
oversight of others and have arrived at man's 
estate. The liberation from restraint which 
some young men, owing to lack of education, 
call liberty, places over them much more des- Introduction, 
potic masters than were their teachers and per- 
sonal attendants in boyhood — I mean their un- 
145 



146 Plutarch on Education 

controlled passions. For just as Herodotus 
says about women that they lay aside their 
modesty with their garments so some young men 
are wont to cast off with the habiliments of 
youth all youthful modesty and reverence. 
Having thrown aside the regard for propriety 
which they had hitherto observed they soon 
plunge headlong into dissolute ways. 

You have often heard that to follow God and 
to obey reason are the same thing : now consider 
that the transition {aycoy^) from youth to man- 
hood does not begin by turning the back on 
the dictates of reason but simply implies a 
change of masters. Instead of a hireling, one 
who serves for pay, young men receive a divine 
guide for their lives, namely reason (Xo'70?). 
Only those who follow its precepts can be called 
free. They alone have learned to desire what 
they ought; they alone live as they desire. But 
their uncontrolled and unreasonable impulses 
and acts display a natural baseness of soul as 
well as little power of self-direction commingled 
with and followed by much remorse. 

II. 

Foreigners and strangers who are enrolled 
on the list of citizens by naturalization find fault 
and are dissatisfied with much that occurs, 
while their children, brought up under the laws 
and familiar with them from childhood, have 
no difficulty in suiting themselves to the new 
government and are content therewith. In the 



The Right Way to Hear 147 

same way you ought to devote much time to the 
study of philosophy, to accustom yourself from 
the very beginning to combine all science and all 
instruction with philosophical discussion, to 
come with an open mind and some degree of 
familiarity to philosophy which alone places 
upon the young the ornament of perfect man- 
hood founded upon reason. 

I think therefore that you will not be averse 
from some lucubrations about the sense of hear- Hearing is 
ing, which, Theophrastus says, is the most sen- the most im- 
sitive of all. Nothing that is seen or tasted or portant sense, 
touched produces such distraction, such mental 
disturbance, such excitement as seizes the psy- 
chic powers when some sound or uproar or clatter 
strikes the ear. In truth this sense has more in- 
fluence on the reason than on the passions. The 
body has many members and parts through 
which vice may slip into the soul; but for virtue 
there is only one entrance, which is the ears of 
the young, that is, if they are from the very first 
kept pure and free from flattery, and uncontam- 
inated by false reasonings. 

Xenocrates was wont to say that it is more im- 
portant to put ear-guards on boys than on ath- 
letes; for while the ears of the latter are injured 
by blows the character of the former is harmed 
by words. He certainly did not intend to com- 
mend defective hearing or deafness but only to 
insist upon the importance of keeping from the 
young corrupting sentiments until others of a 
wholesome sort had been instilled into their 



148 Plutarch on Education 

minds by philosophy, to serve as guards of the 
character; since philosophy rather than any- 
thing else ought to occupy the most important 
and most influential position. Bias the sage of 
the olden time being requested by Amasis (king 
of Egypt) to send him the best and also the 
worst flesh of a sacrificial animal, cut out the 
tongue and sent it to him, alleging that it had 
the greatest power both to help and to harm. 

Many people have a habit of taking little chil- 
dren by the ears when they kiss them and of 
telling them to do the same. In this way they 
jestingly hint to the little ones that they ought 
to love those most who confer benefits on them 
through the ears. For there is no doubt that 
a young man kept aloof from all instruction 
through the ear and who never tasted the pleas- 
ures of reason could at no time produce the fruit 
of even the germ of virtue On the other hand 
he would all the more readily turn to vice, and 
from his soul would spring up many weeds as it 
were from a field that lies uncultivated and fal- 
low. 

If the propensity to pleasure and the aversion 
to labor are not restrained but are allowed to go 
their natural course unchecked by cogent rea- 
sons, and if the good that is in men be not 
strengthened (by education), there is no wild 
beast that is more unmanageable than they. 
And it must be said that those likes and dislikes 
are not something external or something borne 
into the soul by words but are engendered in 



The Right Way to Hear 149 

the soul and are the source of a thousand pas- 
sions and disorders. 

III. 

For the reason that hearing may bring quite 
as much detriment as profit to the young, I 
think it will be well for them continually to re- 
flect upon the subject and to discuss it with 
others. This is all the more important for the 
reason that we see most people making a bad use 
of this sense : they practice speaking before they Hear before 
have accustomed themselves to hearing. They you speak, 
admit that knowledge and practice are necessary 
for speaking but they do not think that any 
advantage whatever can accrue to them from 
hearing. Though ball-players must needs ex- 
ercise themselves in throwing as well as in catch- 
ing the ball, yet in the use of language an in- 
telligent grasp of a subject preceds a discussion of 
it just as conception and gestation precede par- 
turition. 

It is said that when fowls drop wind-eggs they 
cause pain but only produce imperfect and 
lifeless creatures: in like manner when young 
persons have not the patience to hear or are not 
accustomed to reap advantage from what they 
hear discussed, it if just as if blown away by the 
wind, "unheard of, unseen, dispersed 'neath the 
clouds." 

Vessels that are intended to have something 
poured into them are inclined and turned to 
one side so that there may be really a pouring in 



150 Plutarch on Education 

and not pouring out; but young men who will 
not turn to one who is speaking and put their 
minds in a receptive attitude, to the end that 
no useful word may escape them, will not learn. 
However, what is of all things the most farcial 
is that if they happen upon some one who is 
telling about a banquet, or a procession, or a 
dream, or a wrangle that he had with another, 
they listen in silence and pay close attention 
should pre- until he gets through. But if any one who 

cede speak- nas perchance gained their attention undertakes 
ing. to teach them anything useful or reminds them 

of a duty, or how to correct a fault, or tries to ap- 
pease them when angry they can not wait to 
hear him to the end; or if they have sufficient 
patience to do so they make it a point of honor 
to combat his arguments and to get the better in 
the contest. If they can not do this they 
scurry away to listen to worthless talk elsewhere 
in order to fill their ears, as if they were decayed 
and leaky vessels, with anything rather than with 
what they should. Those who train their 
horses properly make them obedient to the bit; 
those who train their children properly make 
them obedient to the word of reason : they teach 
them to hear much and to say little. Spinther- 
us, wishing to commend Epaminondas, said it 
would not be easy to find a man who knew more 
and talked less. We are also told that nature 
has given to every man two ears and only one 
tongue because it is less profitable to speak than 
to hear. 



The Right Way to Hear 151 

IV. 

The most becoming adornment to a young 
man everywhere is silence. Particularly when 
listening to another, he must not get excited 
and blurt out his objections at every turn. If 
the speaker's discourse does not altogether 
please him he should at least restrain himself 
and wait until he has finished: even then he 
ought not to interpose his objections at once 
but follow the advice of Aischines when he rec- 
ommends that a speaker be allowed a little time 
either to add, or to change, or to subtract. 
Those who immediately begin to interpose ob- 
jections act very foolishly — since they will not 
listen to others they will not themselves be 
listened to when speaking. 

He who accustoms himself patiently and mod- 
estly to pay attention receives a profitable dis- 
course into his mind and retains it while on the 
other hand he the more readily discovers and 
detects what is unprofitable and false. Be- Hear w i th 
sides this, he shows himself to be a lover of truth pa ience 
and not of strife, nor a heedless and contentious 
fellow. Not inappropriately have some persons 
said that it is more important to blow the self- 
conceit and vanity out of the heads of the young 
than the wind out of wine-skins before one under- 
takes to put anything valuable into them. 
When this is not done, they are so full of ar- 
rogance and presumption that there is no room 
for anything else. 



152 Plutarch on Education 



Envy combined with a spirit of detraction 
and churlishness is not good anywhere, but it 
is always an impediment to any good deed. It 
is however the worst companion and adviser 
of one whose business it is to hear. It makes 
what is profitable seem vexatious and irksome 
and disagreeable because the envious find more 
pleasure in everything else than in fine dis- 
courses. He who is made uncomfortable by the 
sight of wealth, or fame, or beauty is envious 
only, for he is simply jealous of the good fortunes 
of others; but he who is disagreeably affected 
by an eloquent discourse is put ill at ease by what 
is for his own good. Just as light is a blessing 
to those who can see, so is speech to those who 
hear, if they know how to use it. 

Uneducated and evil-minded persons some- 
times are envious for various reasons; on the 
other hand he that is envious of one who speaks 
well merely because of an ill-timed and vain 
glorious disposition, or of an unjust ambition, 
Envy w ^ n °t P erm it even those so inclined to listen 

to what is well said, but disturbs the speaker and 
distracts his attention, at one time scrutinizing 
his own endowments to see whether they fall 
short of those of the speaker; at another looking 
round upon those about him to note whether 
they are delighted or astounded; now giving 
way to chagrin at the commendations of the 
auditors, now allowing himself to be put out 



The Right Way to Hear 153 

with the hearers if they applaud the orator. 
But he ignores and cares nothing about what 
has been said, yea is rather grieved by the re- 
membrance thereof; and as to what is to be 
further said he is in a state of worry and anxiety 
lest it be better than what has preceded. He 
urges the speaker to finish when he is speaking 
at his best; and when the discourse is concluded 
gives no thought to what it contained but col- 
lects the votes and opinions of the auditors. 
The eulogists he regards as madmen, turns 
away from and flees them in order to run to and 
join those who are engaged in ridiculing and 
carping at what has been spoken. If he can 
find no fault he makes comparisons with other 
discourses recently delivered upon the same 
theme but more eloquently, he thinks, until by 
misrepresentation and perversion he has made 
what he has heard useless to himself and of none 
effect. 

VI. 

ft is therefore necessary to establish kindly 
relations between the love of hearing and the 
love of fame ; to listen to the speaker attentively 
and with open mind, just as if invited to a sacred 
banquet or the initiatory rites of a solemn fete. 
One should commend force and vigor wherever 
displayed and admire the enthusiasm evinced 
by the speaker in setting forth his views or in 
endeavoring to persuade others by the same 
arguments with which he was himself persuaded. 



154 



Plutarch on Education 



Prejudice to 
be eschewed. 
Plato's ques- 
tion. 



We should express our approbation of what has 
been well done because it was not by chance or 
spontaneity that it was done but by care and 
study and adequate knowledge. Such things 
are to be admired and patterned after. When 
we discover any defects we ought to try to dis- 
cern from what causes and whence the error has 
arisen. Xenophon says husbandmen may de- 
rive profit both from their friends and from their 
enemies. In the same manner not only those 
who speak well but those who speak ill are ser- 
viceable to the attentive and discriminating 
auditor. A banal thought, an empty word, 
an ill-chosen figure, an ebullition of ill-timed joy 
for applause received, — these things are more 
readily discerned by others than by the speaker 
himself. 

It is therefore essential to transfer the criti- 
cisms we make on a speaker to ourselves and to 
consider carefully whether we are not inadver- 
tently guilty of the same offences. Of all things 
the easiest is to discover the faults of others, 
but this is vain and useless if it does not lead 
us to rectify similar failings or put us on our 
guard against them. When we note the mis- 
takes of others, we should never hesitate to ad- 
dress to ourselves Plato's question: "Do I make 
the same?" For just as we see in the eyes of 
others the image of ourselves reflected, so in the 
case of a discourse we ought to behold in those 
of others our own represented in order that we 
may not too harshly condemn others and at the 



The Right Way to Hear 155 

same time pay the more diligent heed to our- 
selves when we speak. 

In addition to this comparison, it is also ad- 
vantageous, when, after having been a hearer, 
we find ourselves alone and recall something that 
does not seem to us to have been properly and 
adequately set forth, for us to take up the same 
subject and try to enlarge on some points and to 
improve upon others. We shall also do well 
to express some things differently or even to 
work over the whole subject from the beginning. 
This is what Plato did with the discourse of Lysis. 
It is not difficult but only too easy to find fault 
with a spoken discourse; to put a better one in 
its place is often no easy task. A certain Lace- 
daemonian, on hearing that Philip had destroyed 
Olynthus, remarked: "Such a city he would 
certainly not be able to build." When there- 
fore, in a public discourse on a similar subject 
we are not certain that we can do better than the 
speaker who has preceded us we shall the more 
readily refrain from unfavorable criticism; and 
the conviction we gain by such a comparison 
easily keeps us back from presumption and cen- 
soriousness. 

VII. 

Opposed to detraction is the predilection to 
admiration. While this is characteristic of an 
amiable and kindly disposition, it requires not 
less watchfulness but rather more (than its op- 
posite). The hypercritical and self-confident 



156 Plutarch on Education 

receive less advantage from speakers than those 
who are prone to admire and good-natured re- 
ceive harm; so that Herakleides was not far 
wrong when he said: "A dullard is wont to go 
into ecstasies over every discourse." 

One should therefore freely award praise to 
the speaker but be careful about placing con- 
fidence in what he says. One should be a kindly 
and unprejudiced observer of the style and ut- 
terance of the contestants, but an impartial 
judge of the thought and the truth of the doc- 
trines in order that the speaker shall not become 
our enemy and that his words may do us no 
injury. Otherwise we may, by our credulity 
and confidence in the speakers, accept many 
false and erroneous principles. 

When the Lacedaemonians had approved the 
evidence of a man whose life had been open to 
criticism they assigned the duty of presenting it 
to one of upright life and character. In this 
way they properly and wisely, from the stand- 
point of the state, accustomed the people to be 
guided rather by the character than the words 
of the councillors. 

In like manner, in discourses on philosophical 
subjects, one ought to have regard not to the 
standing of the speaker but to the subject itself; 
for as in war so in public lectures there are many 
false alarms. The gray hairs of the lecturer, his 
figure, the expression of his countenance, his 
self-commendation, but especially the shouting, 
the noise, the stamping with the feet by the 



The Right Way to Hear 157 

auditors, bewilder the inexperienced and youth- 
ful hearer so that he is carried away as it were 
by the current. The language used also has 
in it an element of seductiveness when it is 
agreeable and sonorous, combined with a cer- 
tain dignity and grandioseness. Just as those 
who listen to songs sung to flutes fail to observe 
many false notes, so a verbose and flowery style 
of oratory blinds the listener to its defects. 

Melanthius being once asked his opinion about 
the tragedy of Diogenes replied that he could 
not see it because it was completely obscured by 
words. So the lectures and discussions of 
many of the sophists are not only overlaid with 
words as a sort of curtain but the men them- Words are 
selves carry away and entrance their hearers by not neces- 
carefully modulating the voice, by softness of saril Y 
tones and by a balancing of clauses. They ou S nts - 
confer, it is true, an empty pleasure but reap a 
still emptier fame. Their cause is like one re- 
lated of Dionysius. The story goes that after 
promising a liberal reward to a noted citharist 
during the performance, when it was ended gave 
him nothing on the ground that he had been suf- 
ficiently rewarded by gratitude: "For," said he 
to the player, "as long as you delighted others 
with your singing, so long you had your gratifi- 
cation in hoping." Some lectures furnish the 
same sort of delectation to the speakers. They 
are admired so long as they give pleasure; but 
as soon as the gratification of hearing is at an 
end the credit of the speaker is gone and the net 



We should 
imitate the 



158 Plutarch on Education 

result is that these have spent their time to no 
purpose and those their lives in the same way. 

VIII. 

We ought therefore to eliminate all that is 
superfluous and empty and seek the real fruit; 
we should not imitate the weavers of garlands 
but the bees. The former put together only 
flowers and fragrant leaves with which they 
make wreaths lasting but a day and thus per- 
b ee form a labor of little profit. The latter, flying 

hither and thither over meadows of violets and 
roses and hyacinths alight upon the roughest 
and prickliest thyme, "seeking the yellow 
honey." 

If they find anything that is of use to them 
they hasten away to their own abodes with it. 
In the same manner the lover of art and the 
unbiassed critic must pass by flowery and lux- 
uriant words and things that are more suited 
to the drama and popular festivals; but as for 
himself, he must seek to penetrate into the 
meaning of the discourse and the mind of the 
speaker in order to draw therefrom what is 
useful and serviceable ; he should remember that 
\ he has not come into a theater or a concert-hall 

i but into a school, a place of instruction, in order 

> ; to regulate his life according to the principles 

of reason. 

To this end we should test and examine what 
we have heard with reference to ourselves and 
our own disposition, considering carefully if 



The Right Way to Hear 159 

any of our passions have become calmer, any 
sorrow has been made lighter; whether our Importance 
courage, our fortitude has become greater, if of self -exam 
our ardor for what is virtuous and noble has matlon - 
increased. We must not do like those who, 
when they are about to leave a barber-shop, 
place themselves before a mirror in order to ex- 
amine the cut of their hair and beard. We 
should rather, when we come from a lecture or 
from school, forthwith look into our own soul to 
see whether we have cast off some unnecessary 
burden, or whether it has been lightened of some 
superfluity, or become more gentle. Justly 
does Aristo say that neither a lecture nor a book 
is of any use that doth not cleanse. 

IX. 

Let a youth therefore find pleasure in a lecture 
only when he has received some profit from it. 
He should not regard the delectation of hearing 
as the end, nor think that he is to go out of school 
exulting and globing in philosophy, nor should 
he ask for perfumes when he has need of a lotion 
or of a poultice; let him rather be thankful if 
some one clears his mind, by a reproof, of dark- 
ness and obscurantism like a hive of bees by 
means of smoke. Even if a speaker does not 
see proper to neglect wholly what is agreeable 

and attractive in his discourse, this is at least ' , 

manner of 
a matter of minor importance to the young, c ^i e f i m . 

especially in the beginning. Afterwards, of portance. 

course, they may follow the example of drinkers : 



160 Plutarch on Education 

these when they have quenched their thirst turn 
in their hands and admire the embossed work 
on the bowls. 

In like manner one may grant to a young man 
who has been filled with philosophical doctrines 
as a sort of recreation, the privilege of con- 
sidering whether the discourse is pervaded with 
superfluous and meretricious ornamentation. 
He who does not from the very first direct his 
attention to the subject matter but inrsts 
that the diction shall be Attic and elegant, is like 
a person who will not take a medicine except 
from a vessel made of the clay of Kolias, or who 
refuses to put on a cloak in winter-time unless 
it be woven of Attic wool. He would rather 
sit motionless and speechless, clad, as it were, 
in the thin and threadbare garment of the 
Lycian style. Such disordered tastes have not 
only produced much vacuity of mind and lack 
of wholesome thought, but also much clap-trap 
and verbosity in the schools. They have 
trained young men neither for life nor for the 
public, nor for the private career of a philosopher, 
but have led them to indulge in eulogistic phrases 
and words and in a mellifluous diction without 
concerning themselves whether what is said is 
useful or useless, whether necessary or vain and 
superfluous. 

X. 

Related to these things is the question of 
topics to be discussed. It becomes him who is 



The Right Way to Hear 161 

invited to a collation to be satisfied with what 
is set before him and not to ask for anything else 
or find fault. He who comes to a feast of reason, 
if he does so on certain specified conditions, 
ought to listen in silence to the spokesman. 
Those who turn aside to other themes and inter- 
ject questions or raise doubts are neither agree- 
able nor welcome on such occasions. They re- 
ceive no profit themselves and disturb both the 
speaker and his speech. And when the speaker 
invites his hearers to ask questions or propose 
subjects for discussion one ought always to sug- 
gest something useful and necessary. 

Ulysses is ridiculed by the suitors as "beg- 
ging for scraps, not for swords or cauldrons," 
since they regarded it as a sign of magnanimity 
not only to make liberal gifts but also to be 
asked to do so. All the more might one laugh 
at him who should propose to the speaker little 
and trifling themes for consideration. Young 
men sometimes make use of clap-trap and try to 
get up a display by parading their knowledge 
of dialectics or of mathematics by proposing to 
discuss the unlimited divisibility of matter or of 

motion on the side or on the diameter. To _ 

t. • *t. ou-1 Questions 

such persons one may give the answer JPhilo- s h uld be 

timus made to an individual who was suffering relevant. 

from ulcers and consumption. When this man 

was recommending to the physician (Philotimus) 

a remedy for whitlow, the later, noticing his 

condition both from his skin and his breath said : 

"My good friend, with you it is not a question 



dam. 



162 Plutarch on Education 

of whitlow." So, young man, there is no 
time for you to engage in bootless investigations; 
you should ask how you may rid yourself of 
self-conceit and a penchant for boasting and 
from garrulity and how you may lead a modest 
and well regulated life. 

XI. 

It is also very important for us to take into 
Ne sutor consideration the experience and the natural 

ultra crepi- ability of the lecturer: to have regard to his 

strongest points and to propose our questions 
accordingly. We must neither endeavor to 
constrain the ethical philosopher to discuss 
questions in physics and mathematics nor to 
drag him who is in good repute in physics into 
the consideration of hypothetical and mislead- 
ing subtleties. He who tries to cleave wood 
with a key or to open a door with an axe not only 
does what is very foolish but deprives himself of 
the real use for which both implements are in- 
tended. In like manner those who demand of 
a speaker that which he is neither by nature nor 
by practice prepared to furnish, but will not 
reach out for what he has and offers, not only 
injures himself but also lays himself open to the 
suspicion of malice and envy. 

XII. 

We should avoid asking too many questions 
and too often since this is characteristic of a 
person who wants to make himself conspic- 



The Right Way to Hear 163 

uous. To listen patiently to another who is 
speaking marks the lover of truth and the man 
of good breeding. Nor must we permit any 
mental perturbation that needs to be controlled 
or a pain that needs to be assuaged, to vex or 
disturb us. It is not always "best to conceal 
one's ignorance," as Herakleitus says, but to 
admit it and openly to cure it. If a fit or anger 
or an attack of superstition, or a vehement 
quarrel with members of our household or the 
mad passion of love "setting in motion the un- 
moved strings of our hearts" confuses our minds 
we must not run away to other lectures in order 
to avoid a reckoning with ourselves, but we 
must listen to a discussion of these very themes, 
and after the discussion approach the speaker 
privately for the purpose of further consider- 
ation. 

Many choose the opposite course: they are 
delighted with and admire philosophical dis- 
quisitions on other themes. But if the phil- 
osopher turns aside and speaks boldly to them 
of these matters as to which they are at sea, 
or ventures an exhortation, they are chagrined 
and regard him as a meddler. Such conduct is 
natural to them, for they think that one has 
to listen to a teacher of philosophy in the schools 
just as one listens to a tragedian in the theater; 
nor do they regard these men as one whit better 
than themselves in matters of practical life. So 
far as the sophists are concerned they are gen- * s the ^lesson 
erally not far astray; for they, when they have 



for us ? 



164 Plutarch on Education 

risen from their seats and put aside their book 
and documents are, in their private capacity 
very insignificant persons and very ready t< 
please the populace. But to true philosopher 
they do not take kindly, for they do not kno-v 
that seriousness and sport, a nod or a smile o: 
a frown on their part, but above all the fina 
appeal which they address to each one sep 
arately, will bear useful fruit to those who arc 
wont to obey their precepts and to heed theh 
counsels. 



XIII. 

In the matter of commendation there is alsc 
need of a certain restraint and moderation, since 
either too little or too much is not in good taste. 
He is an unsympathetic and stolid hearer who 
remains untouched and unmoved by anything 
that is said, full of secret conceit and inborn 
satisfaction with himself. As he wishes it to 
be understood that he has something better to 
say than has been said, he neither moves a mus- 
cle of his face, appropriate as it might be, nor 
utters a sound that could be taken as approving 
what he hears. Conversely, he sits in silence 
and with an affected gravity endeavors to gain 
the reputation of being a man of safe judgment 
and profound insight; one who regards all the 
praise which he accords to another as so much 
value taken from himself. Many persons there 
are who get a wrong and ill-timed sense of the 
words of Pythagoras. He said that he had 



The Right Way to Hear 165 

learned from philosophy to regard everything 

without emotion : these people however seek to Nil admirari 

gain credit not only by praising nothing and 

commending nothing but by contemning even 

that which is worthy of commendation. 

No doubt the discourse of a philosopher makes 
an end of the surprise and stupid awe that result 
from lack of experience and from ignorance, by 
putting in their place knowledge and the love 
of inquiry, but it neither destroys kindliness nor 
nobility of soul nor the love of our fellow-men. 
The man who is truly and genuinely good, re- 
gards it as the highest privilege to honor all 
who are worthy of honor, just as it is the noblest 
adornment of him who enjoys fame in plenty 
and abundance to share it with others. Those 
who begrudge praise to others are evidently 
poor in their own and thirsting for it. Albeit, 
he who pursues the opposite course, who tests 
nothing but rises up and shouts at every word 
and syllable is both fickle and frivolous. 

Often he is not even agreeable to the con- 
testants and he always annoys the hearers, dis- 
turbing them and making them get up against 
their will, dragging them along, as it were, 
by force so that they fall in with him out of pure 
embarassment. Nor is he profited in the least 
by the confusion and the tumult that has been 
brought into the audience with his commen- 
dation; and he goes away leaving behind the 
impression that he is either a dissembler or a 
scoffer or a man without taste in matters elo- 



166 



Plutarch on Education 



A listener 
need not be 
an impartial 
judge. 



cutionary. He who sits on the seat of judg- 
ment ought to hear without fear or favor and 
solely with a view to rendering a just decision; 
but in lectures on literature there is no law nor 
oath to hinder us from listening to the speakers 
in a favorable attitude of mind. The ancients 
placed Hermes (the god of eloquence) among the 
Graces because speech above all things should 
be graceful and attractive. They thought that 
a speaker could not possibly be so jejune and 
so far miss his calling as not to suggest some 
idea worthy of approval or call to mind some 
quotation from others or propose some subject 
for consideration or some plan for conducting it. 
With respect to the style and method of what 
is said they thought "that among prickly plants 
and troublesome weeds tender white violets 
often spring up." If now and then orators 
who deliver eulogies on an emetic or a fever or 
even on a pipkin have net failed to receive ap- 
plause, surely a discourse by a man of any 
repute whatsoever and bearing the name of a 
philosopher must afford some inspiration, some- 
thing for approval to well-intentioned and favor- 
ably disposed listeners. All handsome youths 
in some way make an impression upon their 
favorites: those who are fair they call children 
of the gods; those who are dark-visaged they 
suppose to be full of manly vigor; those with 
aquiline noses they say have a royal look; those 
with flat noses are charming; those who are pale 
are complimented as looking like honey— for 



The Right Way to Hear 



167 



worst. 



love like ivy finds something everywhere to 
which to attach itself. Much more will he who Plato. 
is a friend of public speaking and of learning be Seek the 
able always to find cause for saying complimen- best ' not the 
tary things and not inappropriately, about 
every one to whom he listens. Plato, for ex- 
ample, does not praise the discourse of Lysias 
in the matter of invention; he even finds fault 
with the confused arrangement of its parts; but 
he commends the manner of its delivery "be- 
cause every word is clearly and distinctly 
enunciated." 

One might condemn the subject-matter of 
Archilochus' poems, or the versification of Par- 
menides, or the lack of poetic feeling in Phoky- 
lides, or the verbosity of Euripides, or the un- 
evenness of Sophocles. And so there are orators 
who have no character; others who do not move 
their hearers, and others again who are lacking 
in the graces of diction. Each one may never- 
theless be commended for some individual power 
in virtue of which he is able to attract and to 
influence his hearers. There is thus abundant 
matter and occasion for showing one's good will 
to every speaker. In some cases we need not 
signify our approval by voice: a kindly glance 
of the eye, an agreeable mien, a sympathetic 
and benignant posture is sufficient. 

The following are regarded as manifestations 
of common civility due even to those speakers 
who fail completely — an erect sitting position, 
swaying with the body neither to the right nor 



168 Plutarch on Education 

to the left; looking earnestly into the eye of the 
speaker; an attitude that evinces attention; a 
countenance that is not only open but free 
from any expression of dissatisfaction, or that 
shows a mind occupied with other thoughts or 
other affairs. In everything beauty consists, 
as it were, of many features meeting symmet- 
rically and harmoniously in a fitting relation 
to one another, while deformity arises from a 
trifling defect here and a misplaced condition 
there. So in the case of a public lecture, not 
only a scowling look and forbidding mien, a 
rolling of the eyes and a swaying to and fro of 
the body and a crossing of the thighs are in 
bad taste, but a nod or a whisper to our neighbor, 
a smile or a sleepy yawn or a dejected look is 
equally so. Everything of this kind is to be 
regarded as indecorous and to be carefully 
guarded against. 

XIV. 

Many persons think the speaker has every- 
thing to do, the hearer nothing. They maintain 
that he ought to make his appearance only after 
having carefully elaborated and arranged his 
discourse while they on their part rush in with- 
out considering what is right and becoming and 
sit down as if to a feast where they may have a 
good time while others are laboriously employed. 
Moreover, though the urbane table -companion 
has something to do, the well-bred hearer has 
much more. He is a participant in the lecture 



The Kiglu Way to Hear L69 

and a helper of the lecturer. He must aot crit- 
icise the failings of the latter too severely nor 
call him to account for every word and act 
while he on his part wants to conduct him ell 
ill with impunity and sin against good manners 
in many ways. In such cases it is well to follow 
the example of ball-players where not only the 
pitcher but the catcher also has to put himself 
in the proper attitude. Similarly, in the case 
of public lectures there are certain things for 
the speakers as well as for the hearers to do, if 
each of them performs the part incumbent upon 
him. 

XV. 

When expressing approval we should not use 
words of praise without discrimination. It 
impresses one disagreeably when Epicurus tells 
us what tumultuous applause followed the read- 
ing aloud of the letters from his friends. Some 
have lately brought into the lecture rooms terms 
hitherto unheard, by shouting at the speaker 
"divine," "inspired," "unapproachable" as if 
"fine," "wise," "true" were not sufficiently ex- Let praise 
pressive. Such were the epithets of approval De moderate. 
employed by Plato and Socrates and Hyper- 
eides. In the other hand, the former go to ex- 
tremes and lead to the belief that the speakers 
desire such hyperbolical and extravagant en- 
comiums. Those, moreover, are insufferable, 
who confirm everything they say with an oath, 
as if they were in a court of justice. 



170 Plutarch on Education 

Not less wide of the mark are those who ap- 
plaud a philosopher with "clever," an old man 
with "witty" or "florid." They transfer these 
terms from the boyish exercises and declam- 
ations composed in school, to philosophers, ap- 
plying to a sober discourse the extravagant lan- 
guage of a lover, as if they were awarding a 
crown of lilies or roses to an athlete and not one 
of laurel or wild olive. On one accasion the 
poet Euripides was reciting to the singers an 
of " ode of his own, composed according to a par- 

ticular measure, when one of them began to 
laugh. Thereupon the poet remarked: "If you 
were not a person without feeling and breeding 
you would not have laughed while I was chanting 
in the solemn mixolydian measure." I should 
think a lecturer on philosophy or statecraft 
might cure an auditor of his ill manners by 
calling out to him: "It is plain that you are a 
fellow without sense or education or you would 
not whistle and dance when I am giving in- 
struction or exhortation or even merely discours- 
ing about the gods or about a constitution or 
about government." See the absurdity of the 
situation if, when a philosopher is delivering 
an address, those outside are unable to judge 
trom the shouting and clamor inside whether 
the applause is intended for a flutist, a kitharist, 
or a dancer.* 



*See Appendix, Note E. 



T)ie Right Way to Hear 171 

XVI. 

As to the matter of exhortation and reproofs, 
they should not be listened to callously or un- 
sympathetically. Those who regard with in- 
difference and carelessness the admonitions of 
a philosopher, who laugh at criticisms and com- 
mend the critic, are like the parasites who praise 
the entertainer even wdien he is railing at them. 
These fellows are indescribably impudent and 
brazen-faced, while their shamelessness is no 
good or genuine proof of manliness. To take 
good naturedly and smilingly a jest that is ut- 
tered with no intention to hurt the feelings is 
neither servile nor boorish, but the mark of a 
free and Spartan spirit. Conversely, to listen Q ver and 
to reprimand and expostulation that is intended under sensi- 
to improve the character, where a word is de- tiveness. 
signed to operate like a sharp medicine, without 
being humbled and without perspiration and 
dizziness and the soul burning with shame, 
characterizes a youth who is the reverse of free; 
who is dead to all feeling of self-respect through 
long and continuous familiarity with vice. He 
who under such circumstances can sit unmoved 
and even laughing and sneering has a soul like 
hard and callous flesh on which weals can no 
longer be raised. 

There are also young men of an opposite dis- 
position who, if they but once hear what they 
do not like, without more ado run away from 
philosophy. They have a natural aptitude for 



172 



Plutarch on Education 



We should 
stand our 
ground. 



receiving profit from the study of philosophy, 
but it is destroyed by their effeminacy and over- 
sensitiveness. They have not the courage to 
endure strictures and admonitions bravely, but 
prefer to lend ear to the smooth and oily phrases 
of flatterers and sophists. Such persons nat- 
urally say what is agreeable but it is useless and 
wholly unprofitable. One who should run away 
from the physician after a surgical operation 
without waiting to be bandaged would have 
the pain but not the profit of the act; so in like 
manner he who failed to stand his ground to 
be cured of his folly by a short and cutting dis- 
course but scampered away from philosophy, 
insulted and pained, would in no wise receive 
any profit therefrom. For not only, as Eurip- 
ides says with reference to the wound of Tele- 
phus, is it healed "with the rubbed off filings 
of the spear," but also the bite that is inflicted 
upon noble-minded youth by philosophy is 
healed by the same reason (logos) that inflicted 
the wound. Therefore we ought to bear with 
patience the pain and the sting, but not to be 
worried and discouraged in case we are hit. 
When we are being initiated into the mysteries 
of philosophy we ought to bear the first purifi- 
cations and hardships in the hope of gaining 
what is highly advantageous and delightful 
from the present distress and mental disturb- 
ance. Even if the animadversion seems to be 
undeserved, the proper course to pursue is to 
bear it and to hear the speaker through. After 



The Right Way to Hear 173 

he has concluded we may approach him with 
a defence of ourselves and the request that he 
postpone the freedom of speech and tone that he 
used toward us until we had really been guilt v 
of the misdemeanors against which he animad- 
verts. 

XVII. 

Our first lessons in the alphabet, on the lyre, 
and in gymnastic exercises, cause us much rest- 
lessness, labor and perplexity; but as we ad- 
vance in our intercourse with knowledge as in 
our intercourse with acquaintances, greater 
familiarity makes everything in speaking as in 
acting agreeable and practicable and easy. In 
like manner, though philosophy has, in its 
elementary stages, disagreeable and unfamiliar 
features one should not therefore abandon it 
from fright and lack of courage, in its first prin- 
ciples ; we should the rather try everything with 
patience and perseverance and await with con- 
fidence that familiarity which will in the future 
make everything that is good agreeable also. 
This realization will not tarry long; it will shed 
light upon our studies and inspire us with a 
strong love of virtue. He who has deserted 
philosophy from pusillanimity and can still find 
life endurable is a wretch and a coward. 

No doubt matters of this kind present certain 
difficulties to the young and inexperienced, but 
their ignorance and lack of insight is altogether 
due to themselves, for with diametrically op- 



174 



Plutarch on Education 



posite endowments they fall into the same 
error. Some persons, owing to bashfulness and 
a sort of fear of the speaker, are reluctant to 
ask him questions or to call for fuller information 
upon the subject treated, but they signify their 
approval as if they comprehended. Others 
with an ill-timed and vain rivalry with compet- 
itors want to show the ease and rapidity with 
which they are able to acquire knowledge, and 
so pretend to understand what they do not un- 
derstand. Thus it happens that when thos® 
abashed and silent persons go away, they are 
worried and perplexed until at last, under stress 
of necessity, they are impelled by a sense of 
even greater shame, to annoy the speaker with 
a renewal of their questions and to acknowledge 
a change of opinions. On the other hand those 
who are presumptuous and merely concerned 
to save appearances will always continue to 
cherish and conceal their ignorance. 

XVIII. 

Therefore, having put far from us such tim- 
idity as I have described and such vanity, let us 
attend lectures with a mind prepared to lay up 
everything that may be said for our advantage. 
Let us even bear the laughter of those who think 
themselves wits. Kleanthes and Xenocrates 
were regarded as less clever than their fellow 
students, yet they never gave up their studies 
or lost courage. In fact they used to jest at 
their own expense by likening themselves to ves- 



The Right Way to Hear 17.". 

sels with narrow mouths, or to tablets of brass 
because they took up lectures with difficulty 
but held them securely and firmly. Not only 
does Phokylides speak truly when he says: 
"Oft are they disappointed who strive alter 
excellence;" but we must expect to be ridiculed 
and contemned; we must bear jeers and coarse 
jests if we are to devote ourselves heart and soul 
to destroying and casting out our ignorance. 

Albeit, we must also be on our guard against 
the opposite error, an error which those fall into, 
who, in virtue of their natural sluggishness, 
make themselves an annoyance and a nuisance. 
When they are alone they do not want to take 
any pains though they cause the speaker a great 
deal by asking questions on the same theme. 
They are like featherless fledglings that are al- 
ways opening their mouths to some one else 
and for everything that comes along ready 
to seize what has been provided by others. 
Then there are those who seek to gain a repu- 
tation for attentiveness and intellectual acumen 
where it is out of place. They harass the 
speaker with their incessant talk and officious- 
ness, always proposing something unnecessary 
and asking questions they should not ask. In 
the words of Sophocles they "thus make a short 
way very long," not only for themselves but 
for others by interrupting the instructor with 
vain and superfluous questions; and as would 
happen in a company of travellers, they inter- 



176 Pfytarch on Education 

rupt the continuity of the instruction by causing 
halts and delays. 

Such fellows are, according to Jerome, like 
cowardly and nasty pups that at home bite at 
the pelts and pull out the hairs of domestic 
animals, but never attack a wild one. Let us 
admonish these lazy people, when they have 
got the chief points in their minds, to add the 
rest for themselves, to entrust their discoveries 
to the keeping of their memories and to look 
upon the discourse of another as a beginning 
and as seed to be tended and fostered. The mind 
is not like a vessel that needs to be filled, but 
rather like wood that needs to be lighted — some- 
thing into which there is to be planted a longing 
for and a reaching out after truth. 

If a man were to go to his neighbor to ask 
him for fire and there finding a big and bright 
one were to stay near it permaenntly, warming 
himself, he would be doing just like a person 
who came to assist at another's discourse, but 
did not think it incumbent upon himself to kin- 
dle his own light or to apply the torch to his 
own mind, and who, if the discourse pleased him, 
sat still regaling himself. He may, of course, 
carry away with him from lectures a sort of color 
and flush, (like the man who has sat by a fire), 
but he has not driven out and thoroughly re- 
moved the rust and darkness from his inner- 
most soul by philosophy. 

Though there may be need of other precepts 
now and then as to the matter of hearing, it is 



The Right Way to He r 177 

important to keep in mind and practice what 
has here been set down and to exercise our in- To be as 
ventive genius while we engaged in the acqui- honest hear- 
sition of knowledge; the end to be kept in 
view is that we may gain not only a sophistical 
and historical training, but also a thoroughly 
philosophical cast of mind, under the firm con- 
viction that the beginning of a good and honest 
life is to be a good and honest hearer. 



and ( >int.-^.i 



APPENDIX 

NOTE A 

See page 52 

Very few abstract terms in one language 
have their exact equivalent in any other. In 
the case of the most highly developed modern 
tongues the divergences are generally not wide; 
but when we compare the ancient languages with 
those of our own time the differences are almost 
always very considerable. It will therefore 
assist in the comprehension of the text if we add 
a brief discussion of the various terms our author 
uses in the tracts which follow. 

Paideia ( iraiheta ) as understood by the 
Greeks means the natural and harmonious de- 
velopment of the physical and mental powers 
of the young. This process is designed to pre- 
pare them for a useful and happy life as mem- 
bers of the community. It includes not only 
the commimication of knowledge, of instruction 
on the part of the teacher, but also the acquis- 
ition of knowledge on the part of the learner. 
In short, Paideia had in view the formation of a 
noble character, a useful citizen, an able-bodied 
soldier, an intelligent man. It includes the en- 
tire moral and intellectual instruction of the 
young. It embraces both the work of the teach- 
er and the learner, as also the whole range of 
179 



180 Plutarch on Education 

subjects that enter into the training of the young. 
There was of course a great difference between 
the Paideia of popular usage and the Paideia 
as .recommended by the Greek thinkers. 

In the Anabasis, Bk. IV, ch. VI may be 
found a definition of the meaning ordinarily 
attached to Paideia. Cheirisophus and Xeno- 
phon are discussing the feasibility of "stealing 
a march" on the enemy. Xenophon suggests 
to the former that, since he is a Spartan and since 
a thief is not punished in Sparta for stealing but 
only for getting caught, here is an excellent op- 
portunity for him to put to use his Paideia or 
bringing up. To this Cheirisophus retorts that 
the Athenians are reported to be famous for 
stealing the public funds, notwithstanding the 
severe penalties inflicted upon those who are 
apprehended; he will therefore have a fine 
chance to show his Paideia. 

In the famous oration of Pericles as reported 
by Thucydides, he says: "And in the matter of 
education (or matters of education, en tais 
paideiais) whereas they from early youth are 
always undergoing laboriousexercises (atrmjitK) 
which are to make them brave, we live at ease, 
and are yet equally ready to face the perils 
which they face." And Aristotle: "It is evi- 
dent, then, that there is a sort of education in 
which parents should train their sons, not as 
being useful or necessary, but because it is lib- 
eral and noble." Paideusis {Traihevais) ist he 
method or procedure by which one is brought 



Appendix 1 s l 

up. In Xen. 11, 1, 34, we find: "Somewhat 
after this (preceding) manner Prodicus sets 
forth the education (iraiSeva-ci) f Herakles by 

virtue", etc. 

Agoge (ayayyt)) has a wide range of meanings 
but we are here concerned with only one or 
two. Education is the constraining and di- 
recting (aycoyi]) of youth towards right reason 
which the law affirms. Diod. Siculus says: 
"Many gave up the old and strenuous manner of 
life (ayoyij) for less honorable employments." 
It is a competent part of our familiar words 
'pedagogue' and 'pedagogy.' It means the 
leading toward a certain fixed goal. 

The Socratic schools following their master 
taught that virtue, worth, excellence, efficiency 
(aperrj) was chiefly a matter of training, of 
use and wont. Hence the importance they all 
attached to education. They were well aware 
of the necessity of learning by doing. The vir- 
tuous man who wishes to continue virtuous 
must practice virtue just as he who wishes to 
use a language with ease, fluency, correctness 
and elegance must devote much time and care 
to the practice of it. Xenophon tells us that 
association with the good is the practical exer- 
cise of virtue. Saint Paul quotes the proverb 
usually translated, "Evil communications cor- 
rupt good manners," but which means more 
properly, "Good ways are spoiled by evil 
friends." The sentiment is in fact one of the 
commonplaces of morals and is as old as the 



182 Plutarch on Education 

recorded experience of the human race. Xen- 
ophon also represents Socrates as saying that 
what are called the virtues may be strengthened 
by instruction and practice. 

Men gradually lapse from virtue if they do 
not lead virtuous lives just as a man's skill in 
any art diminishes when he neglects or ceases 
to practice it. Plato says: "For entire ignor- 
ance is not so terrible or extreme an evil and is 
far from being the greatest of all; too much 
cleverness and too much learning, accompanied 
by an ill bringing-up, are far more fatal." 

According to the same authority three factors 
must co-operate either actively or passively 
to form the perfect man: Physis, nature or 
natural endowment; episteme, science or knowl- 
edge; melete, practice or habit. The three 
corresponding terms used by Aristotle are 
physis, mathesis and askesis. Generally speak- 
ing, the Greek thinkers were of the opinion that 
melete or askesis was the most important of the 
three factors that enter into education, and that 
excellence was a matter of habit rather than 
of natural capacity. We find Plato saying in 
the Phaedrus: "The perfection which is required 
of the finished orator is, or rather must be, like 
the perfection of anything else, partly given by 
nature, but may also be assisted by art. If you 
have the natural power and add to it knowledge 
and practice, you will be a distinguished speak- 
er; if you fall short in either of these, you will 
to that extent be defective." Thucydides re- 



Appendix Is:; 

ports the Corinthians as saying: "As soon as we 
have brought our skill up to the level of theirs, 
our courage will surely give us the victory. 
For that is a natural gift which they can not 
learn, but their superior skill is a thing acquired 
by practice." 

"Greek life in all its manifestations was 
dominated by a single idea. This idea which 
worked sometimes consciously, sometimes un- 
consciously, was proportion. The Greek term 
for this (Logos) not only came to designate the 
Incarnate Word of religion, but also supplied 
many modern languages with a name for the 
Science of Manifested Reason, Logic. To the 
Greek, indeed, Reason always meant ratio, pro- 
portion; and a rational life meant to him a life 
of which all the parts, internal and external, 
stood to each other in just proportion" — David- 
son. 

Primarily, Logos means the spoken word, 
then connected discourse (the word of the 
Lord), then anything expressed in words as a 
promise, a proposition, praise, honor; then, but 
mostly in the plural, records, stories in prose, 
and so on. Among the Greek thinkers language 
and reason were so closely identified that it is 
often difficult to distinguish which was upper- 
most in the mind of the writer. Perhaps none 
of them would have quite agreed with Max 
Mueller that there is "No reason without lan- 
guage, no language without language," yet they 
were all well aware that the ratiocinative proc- 



184 Plutarch on Education 

ess which can be carried on without words is 
very limited. 

NOTE B 
See page 72 

This celebrated Spartan admiral was chiefly 
instrumental in bringing about the defeat the 
Athenians suffered in the Sicilian expedition. 
Some years after this event, having been com- 
missioned to carry a sum of money to Sparta 
he opened the seams of each of the sacks in 
which it was enclosed and took out a portion 
from each one, not knowing that there was also 
in each sack a tablet on which was inscribed the 
amount it contained. When he reached home 
he concealed his ill-gotten gains under the floor 
of his dwelling, or as some read it, under the 
rafters, and handed the sacks with the seals still 
unbroken to the Ephors. Finding that the 
numbers on the tablets and the sums in the 
sacks did not agree they were at a loss to under- 
stand the discrepancy until a slave of Gylippus 
gave them a clue to the mystery with the re- 
mark that under the rafters (or joists) many 
owls were sleeping, because most of the coins 
bore the stamp of an owl. For this theft Gyl- 
ippus was sentenced to death, but escaped from 
Sparta and passed the rest of his life in exile. 
NOTE C 
See page 99 

When Plutarch endeavors to extract moral 
instruction from the Homeric Poems he engages 
in a more difficult task than the bee that ex- 



Appendix 1 s.", 

tracts honey from the most refractory flowers. 
The insect takes what is already provided; the 
philosopher seeks and thinks he is finding what 
does not exist. Since Homer portrays life 
simply as it is and has nothing to say about 
what it ought to be he makes no pretense of in- 
structing. Life represented as it is furnishes 
material for ethical lessons, just as history does; 
but it is far more recondite. Epic poetry being 
primarily a portrayal of conditions and composed 
chiefly to please the populace rarely turns aside 
to indulge in moral reflections. 

It is well known that the Greeks laid great 
stress and attached extraordinary importance 
to personal beaut)'' and physical perfection. 
This is so palpable that it is hard to see how Plu- 
tarch could for a moment lose sight of the fact. 
The terms that were subsequently used to des- 
ignate the moral virtues contain in Homer but 
faint traces of their later significance. Arete, 
the most comprehensive and most general of 
these never means 'virtue' in the latter sense, 
but worth and worth estimated by a people com- 
paratively low in the scale of civilization. It 
is used about a dozen times in the Iliad and 
nearly a score of times in the Odyssey. Honor, 
valor, perfection or perfections, prowess, ex- 
cellence, are some of its meanings, but it is 
doubtful whether one should ever translate it 
by 'virtue.' Any excellence of body or mind is 
called a virtue. So too in the older and even 
in current English, though the adjective vir- 



186 Plutarch on Education 

tuous has a more restricted sense. In the latter 
Greek writers, as in the Septuagint, it begins 
to mean moral excellence, more especially in the 
philosophers. It is used only a few times in the 
New Testament. Achilles, one of the heroes of 
the Iliad, is called 'swift of foot,' 'breaker of the 
ranks of men,' 'unpitying,' 'bold as a lion,' 
'insatiable in battle,' and so on. Agamemnon 
is called 'the most kingly,' 'illustrous,' 'child 
of fortune,' 'lucky,' while to his brother Mene- 
laus are applied the epithets 'fair-haired,' 
'mighty in the shout of battle,' 'courageous' 
and others of like import. Ulysses is 'full of 
resource,' 'manifold in counsel,' 'dauntless,' 
'shrewd,' 'unfortunate,' 'deserving of pity,' and 
'fertile in devices.' Among these epithets to- 
gether with many others there is none that means 
truthful or merciful or chaste or urpight or 
honest. Plutarch has no historical perspective. 
He did not realize that society is the living and 
breathing expression of development. It can 
hardly be doubted that the extraordinary trib- 
ute of admiration which the Greeks paid to 
Homer for more than a thousand years had a 
deleterius effect upon their morals. Plutarch 
felt this and tried to weaken their evil effects. 
A story was current in Greece long before the 
time of Plato that when the spirit of Pythagoras 
arrived in Hades it beheld Homer and Hesiod 
undergoing terrible torments on account of the 
slanders and falsehoods which they had put 
in circulation about the gods. The average 



Appendix ls7 

man would not be likely to cite the example 
of a god as a precedent to be followed by him- 
self, but the case would be different, if he could 
cite the conduct of a hero. Why might he not 
do what Agamemnon or Ulysses or Achilles or 
Diomede did ? If it was proper for him to pat- 
tern after these braves in fortitude or the ex- 
hibition of personal bravery, why should he 
not also follow the example of the worthies of 
the olden time in heartlessness or cunning or 
sexual immorality? 

It is interesting to compare in this respect the 
exhortations of the Hebrew prophets. Amos, 
for instance, lived, roughly speaking at the same 
time when the Homeric Poems were taking 
shape; yet how different the moral tone that 
pervades his utterances. The tenacity with 
which the Greeks held to Homer and the Homer- 
ic mythology in their education to the exclus- 
ion of almost everything else made the average 
audience fine critics of literature and painfully 
ignorant of many of the affairs of common life. 
The stores of knowledge that had been collected 
up to the age in which Plutarch lived had no 
influence on the educational curriculum. How- 
ever, this fact is not in contradiction of the 
prevalent Greek theory of education which was 
that it should cultivate the taste and mold the 
character but need not impart knowledge. 

The extraordinary interest in the Homeric 
Poems which clung to the Greek people no 
matter where they might be is strikingly shown 



188 Plutarch on Education 

by Dio Chrysostum, a contemporary of Plu- 
tarch, in his Borysthenic oration. Having in 
the course of his peregrinations visited Olbia, a 
Greek colony near the mouth of the Bug on the 
extreme northern coast of the Black Sea, he 
found almost everybody an enthusiastic par- 
tisan of the great epic bard. He tells us that 
the citizens had erected a temple to Homer on 
the so-called island of Achilles and another in 
the city proper. Owing to their proximity to 
the barbarians the Olbians no longer spoke the 
Greek language in its purity, yet almost every- 
body knew Homer by heart. The orator in- 
cidentally asked one of the young men whom he 
met which was the better poet, Homer or 
Phokylides. The answer was that he had never 
heard of the latter and that the same statement 
could probably be made of all the bystanders, 
since in that city no one was regarded as worthy 
of the name of poet except Homer. "They 
quote from him on all occasions," said he, "and 
encourage one another when going into battle 
with verses from his poems." 

As Plutarch was advocating a scheme of ed- 
ucation that was in a great measure ideal he 
might have omitted Homer had he desired to 
do so. This is what Plato would have done, and 
Plutarch was fond of calling Plato his master. 
But with his characteristic conservatism, wherein 
he differed so widely from the highly original 
Plato, he was satisfied with the old education as 
he was with the old religion, because they were 



Appendix lyi 

hallowed by time and tradition, though he does 
propose some modification. 

We need to remember that in Plutarch's time 
Greek literature and Greek thought had run 
their course and had long been at a standstill. 
There was no lack of history of the highest or- 
der; geography had made some progress while 
mathematics was no longer in its infancy, but 
these did not enter into a scheme of education. 

On the other hand, Plutarch's conservatism, 
his representative character, makes his ideas 
the more valuable to those who wish to acquaint 
themselves with the methods of instruction pre- 
vailing in his time. No one seems to have 
thought that knowledge in any extended sense 
of the term was an essential element in a liberal 
education. 

It is important always to keep in mind that 
the ancient and modern idea of the state dif- 
fered widely, and in no regard more widely than 
in the popular conception of its functions as an 
educator. It is true that to a limited extent 
Greece and Rome employed teachers to instruct 
the prospective citizen and paid them for their 
services, but in general he was expected to learn 
his duties by observing the manner in which 
the actual citizen performed these duties. He 
was to learn the craft of the soldier by service 
in the field. Books played a small part in the 
education of the young. That the state should 
employ teachers, establish schools and keep an 
oversight over them is a popular notion that is 



190 Plutarch on Education 

less than a hundred years old, except in the 
mind of a solitary thinker here and there. It 
has not yet taken firm root in all the coun- 
tries that may be called civilized. So far as 
Europe is concerned, it was Germany that took 
the lead in providing for popular education and 
from Germany it gradually spread into the 
surrounding countries. So Germany is also the 
first country to require special preparation for 
its civil service and to provide schools in which 
such preparation was obligatory. 

If the drama, or more particularly dramatic 
performances, can be regarded as a popular 
educator, a view that has long been held in 
Germany, Athens contributed to the extent of 
subsidizing such performances. Plato main- 
tained that it was the duty of the state to edu- 
cate its citizens, but he was far in advance of 
contemporary thought on this point. The po- 
litical predominence of the Spartans which was 
due largely to their valor had not a little in- 
fluence in leading thinkers to adopt this view. 
But the ultimate break-down of Spartan dis- 
cipline and the loss of Spartan prestige discred- 
ited it eventually and Greek thought again in- 
clines toward Athenian individualism. A state 
that exists solely for war disintegrates in times 
of peace. 

NOTE D 
See page 132 

Timotheus of Miletius flourished about 400 
years B. C. His works were virtually unknown 



Appendix 

until 1902 when a considerable fragment of his 

Persians was discovered in Egypt. It is be* 
lieved to be the oldest Greek manuscript m 
existence. There is an excellent transl 
of this fragment by Professor Manatt in the 

Atlantic Monthly, volume 93. 

Bakchylides was one of the nine lyric p 
deemed worthy of immorality by the Alexan- 
drian critics. Until 1897 only about one hun- 
dred lines of his poetic compositions were 
known to exist. In that year several hundred 
lines additional were discovered in Egypt. The 
papyrus on which the Persians is written is 
preserved in Berlin; that of Bakchylides is 
in the British Museum. 

NOTE E 
See page 170 

"I send my servant out to all my scholars to 
summon them to lecture, and he starts off at a 
run to do my bidding. But they are in no mood, 
like him, to hurry, though they ought to be 
even in more haste. They stay, some of them 
to sing their hymns, which we have all heard 
till we are tired, or else they amuse themselves 
with foolish merriment and jesting. If their 
friends or bystanders remark on their delay, 
and at last they make up their minds to be off, 
they talk about their sweethearts as they go, 
or on the skill of some dancer in the circus, and 
they gossip even when they get inside, to the 
annoyance of real students. This they do till 
the lecture has begun. And even when the 



192 Plutarch on Education 

subject is discussed, and the explanation going 
on, they keep whispering to each other about 
the jockeys and the races, or the comedians and 
the opera dancers; or about some scuffle past 
or future. Meantime some of them stand like 
statues, with their arms folded on each other; 
others go on blowing their noses with both 
hands; others sit stock still unmoved by any of 
my strokes of brilliancy or wit. Some try to 
interrupt those who feel stirred. Others va- 
cantly cast up the numbers in the room or stare 
at the trees that grow outside. But their in- 
solence goes even beyond this. They like to 
hiss when others clap, or to hinder any from 
applauding, or to move about across the theatre 
distracting the attention of the rest, sometimes 
by a silly hoax, or by an invitation to an early 
bath. You know very well that this is no ex- 
aggerated grievance but that the like has often 
occurred, and that I have often spoken out 
about it, and given orders that a lazy student 
should be taken by the collar and thrust out of 
the room." — From Capes' University Life. 

This quotation sets forth the experience of 
Libanius at Antioch, but there is little doubt 
that the description would have applied equally 
well to many other cities. Neither does the dif- 
ference in dates — Libanius lived about three 
centuries later than Plutarch — impair its value 
for our present purpose. 



3477 



JT\ 



